Children of Time
by Furyism
Summary: AU: It was universal truth that they could not be separated forever. Pete catches the Doctor, not Rose, and Rose lives on, determined to find him, with her eager and trusty companion, Martha. S3 w/ Rose, Martha, and original eps.
1. Rose and Jones Part I

Disclaimer: If I owned anything important, do you think I'd be here?

Summary: Rewritten for BAW. AU: It was universal truth that they could never be separated for long. Pete catches the Doctor, not Rose, and Rose lives on, determined to find him, with her eager and trusty companion, Martha. S3 w/ Rose, Martha, and original eps.

Author's Note/Foreword: I want to apologize on behalf of my friend, Black Alya Wolf, for the permanent hiatus any of her stories have taken. We've been friends for a while, and she trusts me, so she's given me Universal Truth to complete, because she said, and I quote, "The plot bunny is too fucking evil to leave me alone even after I've left." So here it is, and I hope I've justified her faith.

By the way, if you came straight here from Universal Truth, I'm sorry, but it would be a really good idea to read Children of Time from the beginning, because I _have_ changed some things - changed, not merely beta'd - so it would behoove both of us for you to keep yourself apprised of these changes so there is no future confusion. Thanks.

And for those who get bored because you've seen these episodes a million times, keep reading - you might be surprised!

**Episode One  
****Rose and Jones, Part I**

_She was laying naked by a clear black lake on a cool dark night. The moon was big and bright, supernatural and raw in its primal simplicity. Her hand twitched in the water, causing ripples in the surface which reflected the silvery light and the little twinkling dots that made up the stars._

_In the distance, a wolf howled painfully. She jerked upright in surprise._

_There was a tree nearby, and from it a raven launched itself into the sky. She watched it fly in dizzying circles before coming to land on her chest. Curiously, she wasn't afraid or surprised. She looked into the bird's eyes and saw a reflection of herself._

_A large white wolf appeared then, startling the raven into flight._

_She sat up and watched them, delighted by this show of nature. Behind her, the lake rippled incessantly outward, never stopping._

_The raven, calmer now, swooped low and goaded the wolf into taking a swipe at it. The wolf howled again, this time with such purifying happiness the woman by the lake could not help but shiver with joy. The raven cawed and circled and the wolf followed, chasing it. The raven darted just out of reach, then dropped back to land on the wolf's head._

_She could swear she heard them laughing. The invisible sound breathed on the surface of the lake and a tidal wave blew outward, rising higher and higher until it covered the sky and fell backward, smothering her, drowning her. She drowned laughing._

**ΘΣ ... ****ΘΣ**

It was an ordinary day on an ordinary street in an ordinary city on an ordinary world.

Well, that was what most people were under the impression of, anyway.

Some could call it chaos. Just about everyone referred to it as normality. Hustle and bustle, dogs barking, kids screaming, girls chatting, lovers romancing, teens loitering, beggars imploring off the indifferent, televisions in shop windows roaring, vibrant colors assaulting the senses; a mess of a crowd, really, in which existed a twisted order only the human race could ever find. Unique in its simultaneous tranquility and discord, beautiful in its ignorant simplicity, horrendous in its disregard for these, London, England was a haven for humanity. There was a kind of beauty to it.

Perfectly ordinary beauty.

A phone rang, and a pretty, dark-skinned woman reached automatically into the purse slung over her left shoulder to pull out a sleek silver cell. Around her, there were plenty of people doing the same thing, people ages older and younger alike. Others were silent, preoccupied and intent; several were medicating their eardrums with a guarantee of an eventual hearing disability and bobbing their heads happily as they did so. Some poor idiot dropped his phone or MP3 player or iPod or some bizarre mix of all of three down a city drain by the curb, but the woman we're currently focusing upon could hardly care enough to notice, already talking rapidly into the mouthpiece of the phone she'd just answered as she walked along the street.

That was ordinary, too.

"You're up early! What's happenin'?"

From the woman's side of the conversation, there could only be heard gibberish from the other end, but she seemed to decipher it somehow and kept walking and talking like this was something she went through every day of her life.

It probably was, at that.

The phone rang again, and the woman rolled her eyes before saying her goodbyes and answering whoever had had the grace to interrupt her. More gibberish. That conversation lasted all of a minute, then the phone rang again and the woman was forced to say goodbye once more and answer the next aggravator. Her mum, apparently.

There was a party going on or something; the first caller had been upset about someone bringing someone who wasn't welcome to the party and wanted the dark, pretty woman to fix it; the second was apparently called "Leo" and was the cause of the commotion to start with, though he really didn't want a party at all.

The phone rang _again_. Busy, this woman's life. It was her dad. Ah, so _this_ was the one bringing the unwelcome guest – Annalise, or at least that's what it sounded like her name was. A few people grimaced at the woman in sympathy as they walked by her and heard the high-pitched wail emit from the phone, but the woman either did not notice or tried not to.

Finally, she snapped the phone closed, apparently finished. At last, all that was ordinary had been put out of the way.

A bottle-blonde with hazel eyes marched up the street towards her. At first glance, she actually appeared to be casually strolling along, but there was something about her that caused the crowd to part, that caused a few people to stare but which was entirely imperceptible to the untrained eye. She had a driven purpose, and she wasn't afraid to get there. It was the sort of woman you might expect to see as some heroine in some movie that no one expected to ever be real because heroes like that didn't exist. As it was, this young woman most surely did exist, and it was this distinguishable fact that so clearly set her apart from the bustling, bumbling crowd of the street.

Martha – that's the woman we've been following along Chanslor street, not the bottle-blonde stranger – had fully intended to keep walking. Common sense would have suggested that the other woman would get of the way, but she didn't so Martha tried to swerve to the side; only the stranger seemed intent on literally bumping into her. Their shoulders collided and Martha bounced back farther than she expected, for the stranger didn't seem that awfully strong to her.

"Watch it!" She said crossly to the other woman as she hurried past.

The blonde stopped and looked back at Martha, who was glaring and expecting an apology. People walked past them with a few grumbled complaints of insanity. The blonde gave her a cheeky grin and held up a very familiar-looking pen – Martha's pen, which last she saw had been inside the bag that was slung over her shoulder….

Martha scowled. "Hey!"

The stranger just caught her tongue between the teeth of her smile and wiggled the pen back and forth between her fingers. "I'll give it back to you tonight," she said over the bustle of the street, "sorry!"

And then she turned on her heel and melted into the crowd and Martha blinked, sure that she must have imagined it all.

Afterwards, she could not shake the feeling that something extraordinary had just been set in motion.

**ΘΣ ... ****ΘΣ**

She was practically barreled over on her way into the hospital by some weird guy in a biker's get-up; a courier, she thought. But then he was completely dressed in black and it was stifling hot outside and she couldn't see how the guy could stand it.

Then as she closed up her locker after changing into her medical student gear she was shocked painfully – a shock brighter and more severe than any she had ever experienced before. It wasn't like there were any rugs around, either.

Still, Martha Jones moved on, dismissing it all. It was supposed to be an ordinary day, after all.

She even laughed when Swales called Stoker the "Big Bad Wolf" with all his students trailing along like frightened piglets cowed into service. Nothing was wrong, she told herself as Mr. Stoker took them through the patients, examining them with inexpert hands and getting everything wrong and nothing right. It was a day quite like every other.

After the students had tended to Florence Finnegan, she had almost convinced herself of that. Although, that creepy old lady gave her the chills. There was something about her that made Martha want to run and hide under the nearest bed. But then Mr. Stoker drew back the curtain around the next patient's bed and Martha almost thought she was going to have a stroke.

"Now then, Miss Tyler," said Stoker, "A very good morning to you. How are you today?"

Martha tried not to gape too openly at the woman, either the one she had seen earlier or an exact replica of her.

"Oh, just miserable," Tyler laughed good-naturedly.

"Rose Tyler," rattled off Stoker to Martha and the other students. Swales and Morganstern started taking notes. "Admitted yesterday with severe abdominal pains. Miss Jones," he addressed her specifically, and Martha looked up, startled; "why don't you see what you can find? Amaze me," he added, like he didn't expect she could.

Martha nodded, taking out her stethoscope, and edged over to Miss Tyler.

"Wasn't very clever, running around outside, _stealing my pen_, was it?" She said to her as she put the plugs in her ears. She glared at the woman reproachfully; it wasn't that it had been a particularly important pen, but it had been _hers_, and Tyler had just taken it and run off without any good explanation whatsoever.

Tyler gave her a politely bemused glance that put her off. "What?"

Martha pulled back, frowning. "On Chanslor Street," she decided to remind her. "You bumped into me and stole my pen and just ran away like it was nothing!"

"I did? When was that?" asked Tyler. She looked truly perplexed, but Martha wasn't buying it.

"I don't know, you just did, this morning. I'd like to know why myself, since it was _my_ pen."

"Not me," Tyler insisted with a sort of confused conviction. "I've been here all morning. Jus' ask the nurses, they'll tell ya."

Martha took off the stethoscope without having done anything with it, looking at Tyler incredulously.

"Well, that's weird," she noted. Not so ordinary. "Have you got a sister?"

Tyler shook her head, a crease between her dark brows.

"No, never. Only child, me."

She opened her mouth to question her again, but Mr. Stoker chose that time to pipe up sardonically; "As time passes and I grow ever more infirm and weary, Miss Jones…"

Martha scowled mentally. She'd certainly like to show _him_ where he could stuff it…but this training was too important. Until she passed her exams…

"Sorry," she muttered. She put the stethoscope back on and pressed it to the patient's middle, checking mostly for a second heartbeat, partly for anything else irregular or maybe something in the lungs.

Well, the heartbeat was fine, and there wasn't a second one, so she wasn't pregnant – Martha hadn't thought she would be, anyway. But wait…what was…was that _music_? What? Some kind of…of singing? What the hell? She looked at Tyler strangely and got a slightly annoyed look in return.

She barely heard Stoker's insult, but managed to catch the end of it, something about being incapable of finding the heart. She straightened, trying hard not to stare at Rose Tyler.

"Um…" she started eloquently, then shook her head to herself. The world was going mad today. "I don't know," she thought wildly for something else to say, and the words blurted from her mouth before she could even think about them properly; "Stomach cramps?"

She felt like hitting herself with a metal pole for that, particularly as Stoker pointed out her mistake, then went on to say that she should have looked at the stupid charts first. He was shocked when he went to reach for it. Served him right.

"That happened to me this morning," said Martha, grateful someone else got to share in something she'd experienced today.

"Same thing on the door."

"And me, on the lift."

Okay, a few someones.

"Well, it's only expected," said Stoker, like he knew everything. "There's a thunderstorm moving in and lightning is a form of static electricity, as was proven by…? Anyone?"

"Benjamin Franklin," voiced Tyler when nobody else offered an answer. The students stared at her. "That was fun," the woman continued. "Long day. I got rope burns off that kite, and completely soaked…"

"Quite," uttered Stoker, clearly disturbed.

"And _then_ my friend got electrocuted!" she announced, like that was something to be proud of.

"Moving on." Stoker said before Miss Tyler could say more. Stoker caught the arm of a passing nurse and muttered to him a recommendation for psychiatric, which Tyler overheard if her answering grin was anything to go by.

Martha trudged reluctantly after the rest of the students, looking over her shoulder at the stranger on the bed.

**ΘΣ ... ****ΘΣ**

It was lunch, and she was living her routine life.

"No, listen," said Martha to her phone, grinning to herself. "I've worked out a plan. We tell Annalise that the buffet tonight is one hundred percent carbohydrate, and she won't turn up."

Her sister walked toward the hospital from a few blocks away and replied, "I wish you'd take this seriously; that's our inheritance she's spending – on a fake tan! Tell you what, I'm not that far away, I'll drop by for a sandwich and we'll draw up a better plan."

"What, in this weather?" said Martha dubiously, staring out the window at the wild storm outside. It was _pouring_; what could Tish be thinking? "It's pouring down."

"It's not raining here," noted Tish, sounding a little confused. She rounded a corner and stopped to stare at Royal Hope Hospital and the ominous, dark gray cloud which hung above it. "Well, that's weird. It's sitting right on top of you – I can see it, but it's dry where I am."

Martha shook her head even though Tish couldn't see her. Swales was making her lunch behind her. "Well, you just got lucky."

"No, but…" she sounded incredulous; "it's like the cartoons – you know, when a man's got a cloud over his head."

This sounded so ridiculous – and, after what she'd seen today, maybe even possible – that Martha ignored it.

"Yeah, but _listen_, I'll tell you what we'll do…" she stopped, pulling the phone away for a second. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw movement in the doorway. It was that woman again, strolling casually down the corridor like she owned the place in her ratty pink jim-jams and a dusty rose dressing gown. She must have sensed her gaze, for she turned and peeked briefly into the room, meeting Martha's eyes. She smirked briefly, then turned and walked away.

"We tell Dad and Annalise to get there early, at about seven-thirty, and tell Leo to get there at the same time to do that birthday stuff. We tell Mum to get there at eight-thirty or nine, and that gives me time to have a word with Annalise an –"

Swales nudged her arm suddenly, like she was frightened, and Martha turned to face her, her other hand going to the phone to cover it. "What?"

Swales wasn't looking at her, though, she was staring out the window behind Martha.

"The rain," she said, like she couldn't believe it existed.

"It's only rain," Martha assured her patronizingly.

"Martha," said Tish from the mobile at her ear; Martha pulled away her hand. "Have you seen the rain?"

"Why is everyone fussing about rain?" asked Martha to no one in particular, trying not to laugh. The whole world was going mad today, it was.

Swales was still staring, however.

"It's going up," she said, taking a half a step forward. Martha frowned.

"The rain is going up," said Tish, disbelief coloring her voice.

It was so incredibly absurd that both of them had said it, Martha really had no choice but to turn around and look. She stared out the window with Swales at her side, watching as it rained…upside down.

Suddenly, the whole hospital shook from its foundations, a bright flash of lightning encompassing everything, blinding her.

Martha yelped and stumbled, abandoning the cell phone as she nearly fell to the ground, and gripped the edge of a counter that was torn from her hands with another fierce jar. Swales was having just as hard of a time. They toppled to the ground a few times together, managed to get upright, fell again, and stumbled into obstacles as the ground beneath them trembled violently. The lightning's flash took a while to dissipate, and when it finally did the hospital stopped quaking as well, with both Swales and Martha frightened out of their minds.

The following silence was far too loud.

Martha breathed heavily, overwhelmed.

"What the _hell_ was that?"

"Are you all right?" Swales asked her, sitting in a corner between counter and wall.

She started to get up, brushing away a bit of what looked like plaster – quite a few things had fallen, including them – off her arm.

"Think so, yeah." She looked out the window and tried not to believe that she was seeing what she was seeing. "It felt like a…an earthquake, or…"

Her voice trailed off.

"Martha," said Swales from the floor, glancing up at what she could see of the window. "It's night."

Martha took a step forward without looking at her.

"It was _lunchtime_."

"It's not night," said Martha, resigned. Swales started to get up so she could see whatever it was Martha was seeing.

"It's got to be," she muttered, "it's dark."

"We're on the moon."

"Can't be."

"We're on the moon," she repeated, ignoring Swales. "We're on the _bloody_ moon."

Then the panic started. Screams, dreadful, terrified screams rang through the hospital, penetrating Martha's ears, killing them.

She left Swales where she was and bounded through the doors, trying not to be disturbed by the flurry of patients that swarmed the halls.

Overwhelmed again, she ducked into an empty ward and stared out its window, trying and failing to understand the landscape and the Earth hanging low on the horizon. Her mind wandered back to Rose Tyler. Was she involved, somehow? It would really only make sense, if she was. One mysterious patient, one mysterious space-traveling hospital; it fit, sort of.

Right.

Behind her, the screams continued. Well, if she was going to be the only _sensible_ one around here…

She ran out, passing by Florence Finnegan – the salt-deficient patient they'd seen right before Miss Tyler – who tried to get her attention, and then into a ward, Swales following her.

"All right now, everyone back to bed! We've got an emergency –" _obviously_; " – but we'll sort it out."

She went to the window as the ward slowly calmed, Swales close behind. The outside looked the same as it had through the last two windows. Reality was a bit crushing.

"It's _real_," she breathed, a sense of wonder creeping into her voice now. They were on the _moon!_ "It's _really_ real!"

It didn't make sense. Hospitals couldn't travel space! They didn't have the right equipment, certainly; it wasn't like she could go bounding out there in a space suit…but wait a second…they were alive. How could they be alive? The hospital _wasn't_ a spaceship, it wasn't protected, so how…how were they even breathing?

"Hold on," she muttered, reaching up to undo the latch on the window.

"No, don't!" shouted Swales, grabbing onto Martha's hands. "We'll lose all the air!"

"But they're not exactly airtight – if the air _was_ going to get sucked out, it would have happened straight away, but it didn't. So how come?"

"Fair point," said a familiar voice. Martha spun around to see the curtain around the nearest bed being drawn back to reveal Tyler in her black leather jacket and dark jeans. "Brilliant, actually. What was your name again? Jones, right?"

Martha nodded. "Yeah. Martha."

Tyler smiled at her, a smile that transformed her ordinary features into something so beautiful Martha found herself breathless for it. "Pleased to meet you again, Martha Jones. Now, as you have cleverly pointed out, these windows are _not_ airtight, so…" she frowned then, wandering over to the window and gazing outside; "how are we still breathing?"

"We can't be," Swales whimpered.

Tyler's eyes darted to her and her face softened. She walked to the med. student's side and took her hand. "It'll be all right," she assured her softly. "Don't worry about it, 'kay? I'll get it taken care of. Martha?"

"Yeah?" Martha responded, possibly a little too quickly. Her eyes were riveted to Tyler and Swales' linked hands. Sensing her gaze, Tyler let go and whispered something in Swales' ear, to which the woman nodded and walked away to sit down on a bed with her head in her hands. "What?"

"Is there a balcony or somethin' on this floor?"

"By the patients' lounge, yeah," Martha nodded.

"Fancy goin' out?" Tyler asked, a mischievious glint to her eyes that Martha had never seen in the eyes of any human being she had ever seen before.

"Okay."

"We might die, you know," she warned. Something in her eyes flashed briefly, burning brighter and hotter than the sun.

"We might not." Martha retorted.

Tyler grinned.

"Great!" She exclaimed, making Martha jump. "That attitude'll get you far. C'mon, then!"

Tyler jogged to the door, Martha following close behind. Then she slowed and let Martha lead her to the patient's lounge and past it to the balcony. She seemed as excited as a kid on a field trip, and Martha felt like a duped chaperone.

Martha took a deep, steadying breath, and then they opened the doors together.

Tyler hopped outside gleefully as soon as they realized they were not going to get sucked into the vacuum of space, spinning in a little circle and grinning maniacally out at the moon while Martha stared at her, blinking. Then Tyler turned to face her, and Martha found her grin rather infectious.

"We're on the _moon_!" she practically squealed. Martha had to laugh a little – honestly, laughing and dancing in the face of imminent death; who _couldn't_ admire that?

Martha breathed deeply and leaned against the low stone wall of the balcony, looking out over the surface of the moon. Miss Tyler joined her.

"We've got air," Martha murmured, reveling in it. "How does that work?"

"No idea. I'm jus' glad it does," replied Tyler, watching the other woman as she watched the Earth.

"I've got a party tonight," she said, more to herself than to Tyler. It didn't seem to matter as much anymore somehow, but the other woman turned to her like she'd suddenly become the most fascinating thing in existence. "It's my brother's twenty-first. My mother's gonna be really…" she paused, feeling a hard lump form in her throat built from the suppression of panic and wonder and anything else that may have reduced her to incoherent gibberish far earlier; "really…"

But she couldn't continue. Here she was, _on the moon_, looking down at her stupid, crazy, _beautiful_ planet. A planet where her mum fought with her dad and hated Annalise and where her sister was probably staring at the spot where the hospital had been and cursing Martha for not taking her with her – imagine, the publicity _alone_…

Miracle oxygen around them or not, she found it rather hard to breathe.

"Are you okay?" Tyler asked. Martha jumped; she hadn't noticed, but the woman had gently clasped one of her hands in her own, reminding her of the comfort she had seen her show Swales. The understanding in that warm, hazel gaze tugged sharply at something in the vicinity of Martha's chest.

"Yeah."

"Sure?"

"Yeah."

"D'you want to go back in?"

Martha looked at her for a moment and shook her head with a small laugh.

"No way! I mean, we could die any minute, but all the same…it's beautiful."

She looked back at the Earth and the surface of the moon. And beautiful it was. There were no adequate words, but that was the best she could do. It was more than, say, looking out over the Grand Canyon or a massive lake with mountains and a forest, more than watching a sunset or the dawn of a new day. Those were beautiful, too. But this…this was something else. This was _Earth_, all of it, and it was amazing. It put into perspective all the people and lives and sights and sounds and smells down there. They were paltry, an insignificant little spark compared to the whole wide fire of the world.

"How many people want to go to the moon? – And here we are!"

"Here we are," agreed Tyler, also looking in wonder at the Earth. She released Martha's hand and rested both elbows on the low wall. "Amazing, isn't it? I'll never forget the first time I…" Her voice trailed away. A look of pain briefly crossed her features and she swallowed hard. Martha decided not to pry.

Martha looked beyond the planet and gazed into the stars. Were there others out there like them? Aliens? It was inevitable to wonder that at some point in one's life, and she had before, but not like this. Not from here, when the reality, the _splendor_, was so much nearer. It made her feet itch and her back ache in a way that always made her want to walk out and go for a nice run or fast walk because she just couldn't stay still any longer and running felt so nice, so _right_.

And this woman…who was she? Martha had almost forgotten her transgression of stealing that stupid pen. She supposed it didn't really matter now; she decided to let the event slide.

Martha asked, "What d'you think happened?"

"What do _you_ think?" Tyler retorted, raising an eyebrow.

"Extraterrestrial," Martha said immediately, that itchy feeling coming back. "It's got to be. I dunno…a few years ago that might have sounded mad, but these days? That spaceship flying into Big Ben, Christmas, those Cyberman things…" she paused, looking at Tyler, and was surprised to note that she had stiffened a little at her side. "I had a cousin," she said sadly, and she wasn't sure why, for she was talking to a complete stranger who probably couldn't care less. "Adeola. She worked at Canary Wharf. Never came home."

"I'm sorry," said Tyler, looking at her with compassion.

Martha just nodded. "Yeah."

She expected that to be the end of it, but Tyler kept talking, her gaze turned inward, a tortured look that Martha couldn't bear to see, so she looked back at the Earth again.

"I was there," she said, "in the battle."

"What happened?" Martha dared to ask.

"Nothing," said Tyler quickly. When Martha raised an eyebrow at her, she ammended quietly, "Just death. An'…an' yeah, mostly…death. Sort of." She sniffed once.

Martha felt sad again, wondering absentmindedly what her own family was doing now. What if she never got back? Would they still have that stupid party tonight? Would they mourn, cry?

She _would_ get back.

"I promise you, Miss Tyler, we _will_ find a way out. If we can travel to the moon, then we can travel back. There's got to be a way."

"Rose."

"What?"

Tyler sighed and pushed away from the wall. "My name is Rose, not Miss Tyler. You make me sound uptight or something."

Martha smirked. "Sorry."

"Don't worry about it."

"So…what are you doing here?"

Rose looked at her guardedly. "I'm jus' a patient. You saw me."

"Right," Martha snorted. "And I'm Wonder Woman."

Rose faked a surprised look. "You are? You're shorter than I thought you'd be."

Martha snorted in spite of herself.

"Really, though. You seem to know what's going on."

Rose grinned and shook her head. "That's actually why I'm here. I _want_ to know what's goin' on. Gettin' on the moon's jus' the perk of it."

"You're mad," Martha muttered, shaking her head. Rose started wandering around the balcony, examining what seemed to Martha like random things. "D'you know what _is_ letting us breathe?"

Rose frowned. "I really don't. But from what little science fiction I've read or watched – and all that I've seen – there's probably some kind of…" her face brightened as she came across a pebble. She picked it up, weighed it in her hand for a moment, then threw it out toward the surface of the moon. Several feet away, it hit some kind of invisible obstruction and fell to the ground. "Force field," she concluded, nodding. "That must be keepin' the air in. It wasn't just the hospital that got transmatted: the air did, too."

"But then…if this thing is like a bubble sealing us in, that means this is the only air we've got. What happens when we run out?"

Rose grimaced. "How many people are in this hospital?" She asked.

"Dunno, a thousand?"

"One thousand people," muttered Rose, looking horrified. "They're all gonna die. Suffocating on their own breath."

"Why would anyone _do_ that?"

A noise drew their attention upward.

"Watch it," said Rose. "Ask them yourself. That must be whoever brought us here." She didn't appear frightened.

Three tall, cylindrical _spaceships_ were landing on the moon, towers about the height of the hospital itself.

"Aliens," breathed Martha, amazed. "That's aliens. Real, proper aliens!"

Countless figures dressed all in black were marching toward them.

"Bugger I haven't seen 'em before," Rose muttered. Martha blinked at her.

"You've seen aliens?"

Rose waved her off. "Doesn't matter."

"But who are they? What do they want?"

She grinned at Martha. "Wanna find out?"

"How?"

Rose shrugged. "_Ask_ 'em."

**ΘΣ ... ****ΘΣ**

Martha breathed a sigh of relief when Rose crawled back to her position overlooking the waiting room, apparently unharmed.

"Well?"

Rose looked a little pale. "They're, um…like police, in a way, regulatin' galactic law. Sort of. They're cataloguing everyone down there, making sure they're human."

"Are you –"

"They didn't see me," Rose shook her head. "And it wouldn't matter if they had, 'cos I'm human."

"If they're police, are we under arrest? Are we…trespassing on the moon or something?" asked Martha.

"No," said Rose, looking pleasantly surprised. "But that's a good idea. The moon doesn't belong to anybody, so we can't be trespassing, and even if we were, Neil Armstrong would have been arrested a long time ago. No, it's not nearly that easy. They're looking for someone who looks human, but isn't. I would guess that they have technology to bring us here 'cos they can't legally search for whoever they're looking for on Earth. They'd need a warrant or something."

"You certainly seem to know a lot, Miss Rose. So what do you mean, _'galactic law'_? I mean, where did you get that from?"

"My friend, he…" Rose looked away from Martha to avoid meeting her eyes. "He used to mention something about them, whenever we really got into trouble. The Shadow Proclamation. That's what these things are part of. Judoon. He told me a little about them."

"'Shadow Proclamation'?" Martha repeated, bemused. "Sounds…insidious."

Rose smiled a little. "It does, doesn't it?"

"So what kind of alien could they be looking for?"

Rose looked thoughtful. "I dunno, really. Looks human, but isn't. There's thousands of aliens that fit that description."

Martha's jaw dropped. "_Thousands_?"

Rose nodded solemnly, appearing sympathetic to Martha's disbelief. "You get used to the idea, after a while."

Martha threw her such an incredulous glare that Rose had to chuckle. But then her expression became grave and serious. She looked at the rhino-things – Judoon, whatever – and then at Martha. There was something in her eyes that Martha couldn't decipher if she tried.

Martha cleared her throat and decided to make a suggestion. "Well, this is a hospital," she said. "If the alien was a patient, and they're probably kind of different from humans, then shouldn't something show up on file? Something that…sticks out?"

Rose bit her bottom lip and nodded, smiling. "I like your thinking, Martha. Any idea how to access these files?"

Martha hesitated. "We could use the computers, but it might be easier to just ask Mr. Stoker."

Rose jumped up quickly, startling Martha. "To Mr. Stoker, then. Lead the way, Miss Jones."

She broke into a run and Martha hurried to keep up and then get ahead of her. "This way!" She called over her shoulder.

The sound of marching troops – space rhinos, she was determined to call them – and panicked humans enveloped them, but on they ran.

The office was closed, but Martha barged in without knocking. She blamed her rudeness on the adrenaline. Rose lunged in after her and they both came to an abrupt halt. Rose cursed softly.

Florence Finnegan, flanked by a person dressed up like the courier Martha had seen earlier, was standing over Mr. Stoker. She held a straw with one hand to Mr. Stoker's neck and was slurping noisily from it with her mouth. The old woman looked up as soon as the door to the office opened, looking just as shocked as they were. After an instant spent staring at each other, Finnegan narrowed her eyes and pointed at Rose and Martha. "Get them!"

The creepy bodyguard burst into life. Rose grabbed Martha's hand and uttered a word Martha was sure she would get used to hearing; "Run!"


	2. Rose and Jones Part II

**Episode One  
****Rose and Jones, Part II**

"_Run!"_

Martha didn't need telling twice, even with Rose pulling her along. They sprinted out of the room, slamming the door behind them, and down the hall in the opposite direction of that weird guy. Martha heard a terrible crashing noise and dared to glance behind her to see the door to Mr. Stoker's office splintering open as the courier-person barreled right through it. A shot of pure fear and adrenaline raced its way through her veins. She couldn't help but secretly marvel in the rush of the feeling.

They flew down a set of stairs and careened around the corner on the landing to the next one, but Rose stopped her, "No!", pushing Martha away from the top of the stairs after she'd jumped down the last few ahead of Martha. They ran off again, down another corridor. Martha looked over her shoulder to see that the Judoon were down the staircase Rose had kept her from running down and that they had joined the chase.

There was not much time for further thought, however, because the courier-person was right behind them. They raced down the corridor, then turned into another one, and another, until finally they came to another set of stairs and Rose lead Martha down, and down, and down, until they came to a door that Martha assumed lead to the basement.

Rose threw open the door, ushered Martha inside, then slammed it closed and bolted it. A dim light lit the room from one corner, and Rose jogged over there. She opened another door to what appeared to be a closet of some kind and paused in the doorway, beckoning Martha toward her. Martha hesitated.

A loud _boom_ shook the walls of the basement, originating from the general direction of the door. Thus encouraged, Martha took a leap of faith and joined Rose in the closet.

It was dark, but in the gloom Martha could just make out Rose fumbling for something around her neck.

"What are you doing?" she hissed.

Rose ignored her and gave a tiny cry of triumph when she finally retrieved what she was looking for. She nudged Martha aside, so that she had to press herself tightly against the wall, and reached an arm out like a zombie, feeling for something in the dark.

Another boom shook the walls. Martha saw Mr. Stoker's door splintering open again in her mind. Then she saw Mr. Stoker, pale and drawn, thankfully unconscious, getting sucked dry by some kind of alien vampire. Martha panicked and bit back a whimper that was rising its way up her throat.

"There she is," Rose whispered at last, confusing Martha. There was the sound of a key being inserted into a lock, then being turned, and finally a door opened with a soft creak, flooding the closet with golden-green light that was blinding after their brief time in the murk. "Quickly," Rose urged Martha, shoving her gently inside.

"Where –"

Martha stopped, voice caught in her throat. Rose ignored her, closing the door behind them and clambering swiftly up the ramp to the mushroom-like structure in the middle of the…_huge_ room.

"Right then," Rose said, spinning around suddenly to face Martha. Martha was craning her neck to see where the ceiling was. She was pretty sure the basement of the hospital didn't reach that high up, but she could be mistaken.

"Martha!"

Martha jumped; Rose was grinnning at her amazement.

Something pounded at the doors and Martha spun around to face them.

"Jumpy?" Rose laughed. Martha could only fight to catch her breath. "Don't worry, they can't get in here. Hell, the armies of Genghis Kahn couldn't penetrate the TARDIS, or so I've heard."

_Huh?_

"Tardis?"

Rose nodded, smiling slightly. "T-A-R-D-I-S," she confirmed, spelling it out. "Time and Relative Dimensions in Space. I guess you could say…she's my ship." She looked a little disturbed by this, as if just realizing that her cat was really a dog in disguise.

"Ship?" Martha deadpanned.

The things outside pounded on the doors again, trying to get in. Martha's gaze darted fearfully from Rose to the doors and back again. Rose faced the central column of the room, on which there appeared to be a messy array of buttons and levers that Martha could not make sense of if she tried. Rose beckoned Martha over to a screen which displayed the outside of the, er, _ship_, or wherever it was they were. The courier thing was looming in the dark. Martha looked away quickly.

"It's called a Slab," explained Rose. "It's like a slave; does anything that old woman tells it, I reckon. Could be made of anything: wood, wool, steel. I ran into one that was glass all the way through. My friend shattered him – the idiot, got cuts all over us from that."

"How do we kill this one?"

"Well, it's obviously not glass, so we can't just shatter it. Smelled like leather, actually. Know anything that can completely destroy leather?"

Martha shook her head. Her brain felt fried. "Fire?"

Rose shook her head. "Not quick enough."

Rose frowned and looked to the central column, seeming to be staring at something beyond the greenish neon glow emanating from it. It may have been Martha's imagination, but she was almost certain that the light flickered a little.

"Oh, well, that could work, I guess," she muttered quietly. "But it's dangerous."

Martha stared at her. Barking mad, this one.

"What's dangerous?"

"Roentgen radiation," Rose replied as though it were obvious.

"What, like from x-rays?"

Rose nodded enthusiastically. "Yeah, exactly. We – _I_ have an infirmary on board, it's got x-rays. Well, really really advanced x-rays, but something similar enough that uses roentgen. A good dose of that would completely destroy the connection between the Slab and that old woman we saw."

"And that would kill it?"

"Well, it wouldn't be able to do anything anymore, at least."

Martha smiled. "Great! So shoot it with...with roentgen beams or something!"

Rose shook her head and Martha's smile faded. "Not that simple. But...oh, hold up...no, I got it! I got it! Martha, thank you thank you thank you! I got it! Thanks!"

"Erm...you're welcome?"

The light flickered again and Rose bounced up and down. She removed a panel of metal grating from the floor and tossed it to the side before jumping down inside the bowels of the TARDIS. She came back up with something that looked like a flattened rubber fire hose.

"What's that?"

"The thing that's gonna shoot roentgen beams!" Rose called, once more lost in the semi-darkness below.

Martha crouched down and peered at the back of Rose's head. She could hear switches being flipped and mild cursing when one of them spat sparks out at her.

"No wonder he was always fiddling," Rose mumbled incomprehensibly. "I'll have to too, I suppose." She jumped up and Martha stood up, backed away. "That should connect roentgen radiation from the medlab to the huon conductor, now I just have to crank the power and..."

She grabbed the flattened fire-hose-thing – huon conductor? – and examined the end of it. There was a dial on the thin rectangular metal ring around the opening and Rose bit her lip as she turned it precisely three notches.

"...and focus the beam so we don't die, of course."

Martha didn't know how she should feel about that.

Rose pushed a few buttons by the screen. The keyboard looked very strange, Martha noted. Everything did.

"Okay, Martha, this is very important," Martha looked at her with wide eyes. "I'm going to open the door and let the Slab in. I'll aim the huon conductor – that's the thing we're using to kill it – at the Slab. As soon as I say, you need to push this button here, 'kay?"

She was pointing at a globular brass thing set into the console. Martha nodded. The task sounded simple enough. But she had a queasy feeling in her stomach when she glanced at the monitor; it was glowing a foreboding mauve color and flashing words in characters Martha didn't recognize.

"Okay," she said.

Rose snatched up the huon conductor and held it carefully in one hand. She marched to the doors and before Martha could do anything – warn her, convince her not to, cry – she had thrown them open and backed up several paces. The Slab lurched forward and stretched its arms out like a zombie, heading straight for Rose.

Rose's spine straightened as she expertly aimed the conductor at it.

"Now, Martha."

Depsite Rose's calm tone, Martha was no less urgent with the swiftness of her response. As soon as her hand slammed on the button, a blinding bluish-white light consumed Martha, burning her eyes and her skin and – well, everything, really, and she had a moment of pure terror where she thought Rose had miscalculated something, that she was going to die here, in an impossible ship in a hospital being torn apart by space rhinos searching for a vampire posing as an old woman with leather bodyguards on the moon.

And then, maybe years, maybe a second later, it was over and Martha could breathe again. Rose stood victorious over the crumpled form of the Slab. She carefully replaced the huon conductor, flicked some switches, and covered the floor with its grating while Martha stared at the thing that could have killed them. She walked over to it and nudged its side with her toe.

"So," she said uncomfortably. "Ms. Finnegan is a vampire. You ever seen a vampire?"

"Can't say I have," said Rose, bemused. "Poor Mr. Stoker."

"Yeah," Martha agreed dully. She had the insane urge to run away, run home, crawl underneath the covers of her bed and sleep this nightmare away. Mr. Stoker's pale face was branded into her mind and no matter how hard she tried to see the Slab in front of her, all she could see was Mr. Stoker, dying. "Guess the wolf got him."

Rose looked at her sharply. "What?"

"What?" Martha was confused.

"What did you just say?"

"I don't –"

"You said 'the wolf got him'."

"I did?"

"Yeah."

"So?"

"So nothing." Rose turned away quickly. "It's nothing."

Martha made a noise of doubt, which Rose dutifully ignored. She made her way to the doors, Martha following.

"Who was he?"

"Who?"

"Mr. Stoker?"

"Oh," said Martha. She shook her head, trying to clear it of the fuzz that had accumulated there. "My instructor. I'm going to be a doctor some day."

Rose smiled. "A doctor," she said, "that's nice."

"S'pose so."

"I'm sorry."

Martha almost laughed. "None of this is _your_ fault!"

Rose didn't reply. She closed the door of the TARDIS and made sure it was locked, then walked toward the door of the basement.

"Weird, though, isn't it?" Rose commented, halting suddenly and facing Martha, who nearly ran into her. "Why would she kill somebody at a time like this? It doesn't make any sense, she should be hiding…"

"Maybe she was," Martha suggested. "Maybe Mr. Stoker knew about her and she had to kill him to cover her tracks." Rose looked at her oddly. Martha shrugged

"Martha," said Rose slowly. "You're…bloody _brilliant_."

"Erm…thanks? Hey, wait!" Rose had spun on her heel and bolted for the door. "Where are you going?"

"To find Ms. Finnegan," Rose exclaimed, exasperated, ahead of her.

"We don't know where she is!"

"Martha," Rose admonished as they traipsed up a set of stairs, "if you were an alien hiding from galactic police with scanners that could tell you were non-human, what would you do?"

"Try and make them think I was human," Martha answered breathlessly, confused, as they came around a corner.

"And if there was the _slightest_ chance of that failing because the police are going to execute everybody anyway?"

Martha opened her mouth to answer, but couldn't. She didn't know. Rose stopped, panting, and grabbed Martha's shoulders. "_Think_, Martha," she commanded. "If you're scared, and cornered, and a criminal, what're you gonna do?"

She didn't know how she was supposed to know the answer to that, but she did.

"Lash out."

"Exactly. And as far as we know, she hasn't been discovered yet, yeah? So she's got time to plan her move. Make it as powerful as she can. She needs a powerful enough machine to lash out properly. Something that could cause a whole lot of damage if it was messed with – say, its power magnified times a thousand if necessary. It's probably simple for her. And the one machine closest to her when she killed Mr. Stoker was…?"

Martha thought furiously. "The MRI," she whispered in horrified realization. "She's gonna do something to the MRI!"

Rose nodded grimly. "There's no telling what she knows or what kind of damage she could cause. We have to find her before she does something that could blow us all to hell."

"C'mon, then!" Martha felt a rush of adrenaline synchronizing with a sense of urgency. They had to get _moving_.

"Wait!"

"What is it?"

Rose grimaced. "We're running out of air."

Martha groaned in frustration. Could anything _else_ go wrong?

As though fate were on her tail, the second Slab chose that moment to round the nearest corner. Rose cursed and shoved Martha in front of her, behind a nearby water cooler. Martha glared at her when she nearly bumped her head on it, but Rose didn't seem to notice.

"They always travel in pairs," Rose mused quietly. "The one that survived after the D – after my friend killed its partner went kind of insane. Wouldn't listen to its master, just wanted to destroy everything in sight."

"What about you?" Martha asked her as the Slab went around the corner and vanished from sight. "Haven't you got someone?"

Something indecipherable flashed across Rose's expression, but it was gone so quickly Martha almost thought she imagined it.

"Nope," she replied cheerfully. "Just me."

"What, on your own?"

Rose gave her an incredulous glare. "We're in a hospital, on the _moon_, running out of air, chasing after a criminal bloodsucker who may or may not try to blow up the Earth, hiding from rhino space-police and a retarded leather slave, and you're asking personal questions?"

"Just curious," Martha defended herself indignantly. "No reason to get all snappy on me."

Rose rolled her eyes and stood, pulling Martha to her feet. "Come on. We've got to find that vampire."

"Don't know why we're _hiding_ from the rhinos anyway," Martha groused; "if we're both human. Assuming you even _are_ human, and I'm not completely convinced of that."

Rose shot her an amused glance just before they rounded a corner.

Martha's heart jumped a beat when they came face-to-face with a Judoon squad. The nearest one immediately began to shine its blue scanner in Rose's face. After several seconds and a longer moment than Martha was sure it had taken them to categorize the other humans, the Judoon finally proclaimed, "Unknown species, part-human. Detain for further questioning!"

Rose and Martha's jaws dropped. "Oh my God, you're really _not_," Martha breathed. Rose shook herself from her stupor as the Judoon started toward them with guns and chains.

"And again!" She started off down the hallway once more with Martha hot on her heels. They ducked as they were shot at by some type of ray gun which Martha thought more belonged in a B-movie than in a hospital. They turned sharply around a corner and down a short flight of stairs. Rose lead them through another door, which she bolted behind them.

"Never gets old," Rose muttered. Martha looked at her like she'd lost her head and grown three new ones. With tentacles.

Rose glanced at the hand of a patient who was lying in the hall, sleeping off oxygen starvation. Martha felt her own lungs straining for breath and a wave of dizziness threatened to blacken her vision. But there something more important to be done than passing out, she thought, and stayed standing through sheer force of will.

"They've done this floor." Rose said, also out of breath. "With any luck, they won't come back to it. Let's go."

When they were almost to the end of the hall, Martha spotted Swales and put a hand on Rose's arm to stop her.

"How much oxygen is there?" Martha asked Swales.

"Not enough for all these people," the student answered. She looked weary and rather oxygen-starved herself. "We're going to run out."

"How are you feeling?" Rose asked Martha. "All right?"

"I'm running on adrenaline." Martha replied with a smile.

"Welcome to my world." Rose said dryly.

"What about the Judoon?" asked Martha.

Rose shrugged. "They're the cause of it, they probably have some sort of protection or other," she said. "I wouldn't count on it slowing them down. This way, right?" She pointed and Martha nodded.

When they approached Mr. Stoker's office, Martha put a hand on Rose's arm.

"Hang on." She said.

She crept cautiously into the office. When no bloodsucker with a straw popped out to drain her dry, she jogged the rest of the way in and knelt at Mr. Stoker's side. Rose watched from the doorway as she gently ran the pads of her fingers over his cold, pallid eyelids to close them. She straightened and looked Rose in the eye, then nodded once at the unspoken question she saw there and left the room.

"It's down at the end of that hall there," Martha gestured with her head.

Rose bit her lip, thinking. They couldn't just rush in, Martha realized with some consternation.

"Something still doesn't fit," Rose muttered, mostly to herself. She talked so fast and so quietly Martha could barely understand her. "Why would she kill Mr. Stoker? Yeah, if he knew there was something strange about her, but then she could have just locked him up. Killing him and then just leaving him there runs the risk of the body getting found. And then what? The Judoon could use the body to find her. It just doesn't make sense. Unless…the blood…and she drank it, so…"

They desperately needed a plan. Martha watched as Rose's face slowly hardened into a mask of solemn determination. Martha opened her mouth to speak but, before she could, a pandemoneum of noise from the direction in which they'd come had them both spinning. The Judoon were double-checking the patients.

"Find the non-human. Execute," they chanted, and a chill crept up Martha's spine.

Now what?

She heard Rose sigh. "Look, don't know how it's possible, but apparently I'm not completely human, or at least their scanners don't think I am. Martha, I have an…an idea, but I need you to hold them up just long enough for me to do it."

"Do what? And how do I hold them up?"

The Judoon were growing closer.

"Martha, why hasn't she been caught yet?" Rose didn't wait for an answer; "Because she's hiding, right? But how can she hide so well? Mr. Stoker's blood! She drank it, must have done something with it to make her seem human so the Judoon couldn't catalog her as anything else. But it's been a while since then, she must need more to stay completely human. So, logically, if she had a taste of _my_ blood, the non-human part of me and the non-human part of her would actually –"

"Oh, no you don't," Martha interrupted sternly, but Rose shook her head quickly.

"We don't have time to argue! Martha, I need you kiss me." Martha stared at her, utterly flabbergasted. Rose rolled her eyes. "Or let me spit in your mouth or bleed in your ear or something, whatever suits your fancy."

"Oh." Martha blinked, finally understanding where this was going. She glanced over her shoulder; the Judoon were only a few feet away. Shit. Well, when it's life or death…"Right, then." Swiftly, she stepped forward and pressed her lips to Rose's own. Rose yielded her mouth to hers quickly and they swiped tongues once before Rose hastily stepped back.

Rose stepped back and glared at Martha sternly. "Don't take _too_ long, now. I still need you to save my arse." Then she turned and ran down the hall.

Immediately thereafter, the Judoon were bearing down on Martha. She resisted the urge to rub her mouth on the sleeve of her labcoat and spit out the too-sweet taste of Rose.

"Now listen!" Martha said, and the Judoon paused, looking at her. "I know who you're looking for. She's this woman; she calls herself Florence –" she was interrupted by the now-distinct sound of cataloguing. Martha went cross-eyed looking at the source of the blue light in her face.

"Human," announced the Judoon after a pause in which Martha nearly held her breath, "with non-human traces detected."

She almost breathed a sigh of relief. It worked. Her tune changed, however, when two of the Judoon drew their weapons and the one with the scanner shoved her against the wall with an arm.

"Non-human element confirmed. Authorize full scan. What are you? What are you?"

Several moments later, the Judoon stopped waving the scanner in her face.

"Confirm: human. Traces of facial contact with part-human." Martha inwardly grimaced at the memory; now she did wipe her face with the sleeve of her coat. The Judoon marked her hand with a black 'x' with the tip of its scanner, then spoke to its comrades. "Continue the search."

"You will need this," another Judoon shoved a plastic-like papery thing with barcodes into Martha's hand while the others proceeded into the MRI room to continue their search.

"What's this for?" Martha asked.

"Compensation." The Judoon said. Martha shrugged and stuffed it in her pocket.

She waited until she was sure they couldn't tell she was following, then sprinted after them. What if she was too late? What if Florence had killed Rose? What the freak would she do then?

Martha heard Florence's sickly sweet claim that a "poor young lady" had died of fright. Trying not to panic, she pushed her way to the front of the squadron of Judoon that had assembled, apparently right after the Judoon in the hall had figured out that Martha wasn't the person they were looking for. They were scanning the body on the floor – Rose.

"Confirmation," the one with the scanner declared. "Deceased."

Martha's blood ran cold.

"Oh my God," she breathed, and rushed forward. A Judoon stopped her, a firm three-fingered rhino hand on her shoulder.

"Stop," it ordered. "Case closed."

'_Case closed'_? That was all they had to say? But what about…?

"But it was her…" Martha's voice trailed off, locking eyes with Florence the vampire. She rounded furiously on the Judoon, trying to ignore the clouds that lack of oxygen was starting to fog in her vision. "She killed her! She did it; she _murdered_ her!" and partly all she could think was _it's all my fault, I should have been faster, it's all my fault, it's all my fault, itsallmyfaultgodammit…_

"Judoon have no authority over human crime," replied the Judoon tonelessly.

"But she's not human," Martha desperately protested.

"Oh, but I am human," said Florence, holding up right hand, which was marked with a black 'x'. "I've been catalogued."

"But she's not!" insisted Martha desperately. "She – wait a minute," her panic and her guilt faded just enough to clear her mind or, more specifically, her memory. Rose's plan. She grabbed a scanner off a Judoon to her right and pressed the button she found on the top. She shone the light into Florence's eyes, who still wasn't getting it.

"Oh, all right. Scan all you like." Florence said confidently, not even trying to dodge the scanner.

The Judoon examined the results.

"Non-human," it said, a bit of disbelief coloring its otherwise emotionless voice.

"What?" exclaimed Florence, shocked.

Martha lowered the scanner triumphantly.

"Confirm analysis," said the Judoon, taking the scanner from Martha.

"Oh, but it's a mistake, surely," said Florence a little too hopefully, too desperately. Martha shook her head pityingly at her. "I'm human. I'm as human as they come."

"She gave her life so they'd find you," realized Martha, not completely sure if she should admire that or be appalled. How could she just throw her life out the window like that, like it didn't even matter?

"Confirm: Plasmavore," the Judoon said harshly. _Plasmavore?_ Martha thought. _Not vampire?_ "I charge you with the crime of murdering the princess of Patrival Regency Nine."

"Well, she deserved it," spat Florence, finally giving up all pretense of innocence; "with those pink cheeks, blond curls – and that simpering voice! She was _begging_ for the bite of a Plasmavore."

"Do you confess?"

"Confess? I'm proud of it! Slab! Stop them!" She ordered and ducked around the partition that guarded from them the controls of the MRI she'd clearly modified. She plugged two giant red extension cords together as the Slab started forward. Rose had been right. About…everything.

A Judoon stepped in front of Martha and shot the Slab, the leather dissolving into nothing.

"Verdict: guilty. Sentence: execution."

"Enjoy your victory, Judoon!" gloated Florence. "Because you're going to burn with me! Burn in hell!"

As one, the squadron pointed their weapons at the screen. Martha ducked instinctively, falling to her knees at Rose's side. They shot clean through the screen, disintigrating the Plasmavore.

"Case closed."

"But…what did she mean 'burn with me'?" said Martha logically, though logic certainly felt far beyond her at that moment. "The scanner shouldn't be doing that; she's done something!" The MRI machine was, in fact, sparking wildly. Surely the Judoon could _see_ that! Fear clouded her mind now nearly as much as oxygen starvation. She was panting, lungs heaving, and her bones trembled with terror.

The Judoon turned to the scanner and held his own scanner to it. "Scans detect lethal acceleration of monomagnetic pulse."

Mono-_what_?

"So fix it!" Martha snapped. She starting to feel light-headed.

"Our jurisdiction has ended." A Judoon told her. "Judoon will evacuate. All units WITHDRAW!"

As the Judoon left, Martha felt an urge to run after them, scream and beg that they put things _right_, but they were running out of oxygen and Rose was just lying there, helpless, _dead_, and she had to do _something_, because she didn't know how to stop the overload and Rose was their only chance.

Gritting her teeth and breathing shallowly until she needed the oxygen for mouth-to-mouth, she initiated CPR, pumping her hands on the woman's chest, pleading silently for her heart to restart. "Come on," she whispered aloud, tears threatened to spill over onto her cheeks. "Don't do this to me now. The world needs you, Rose Tyler."

She tilted the blonde's head back, plugged her nose, took a deep breath, and breathed into her. Drew back, did it again, and then again, and again, then went back to pumping her heart. _BREATHE!_ she wanted to order her, but she couldn't spare the breath. She thought back to that morning, to the music she had heard alongside the beat of Rose's mortal heart: the ethereal singing that made no sense but which resonated deep in her mind. She tried to recreate that; tried to make it form in the forefront of her mind, hoping that somehow Rose would hear it.

Not much oxygen left, dammit. She sat still and panted for a second, then closed her eyes, sucked her breath in, and then poured it into Rose, her mind resonating with the otherworldly song.

Rose gasped to life, sitting bolt upright and coughing as she tried and failed to adjust to too-thin air.

"She…did something…" Martha said weakly, collapsing to the floor. Black spots danced before her eyes. "Over there." She pointed to the partition.

Rose nodded, forced herself to stand, pushed herself to the melted screen and stumbled around it. She groaned mentally when she saw her two options: blue plugs or red plugs? She didn't have _time_, dammit. Why couldn't Martha have done this? It was so simple a caveman could do it! But which one?

With a start, Rose realized that she wasn't even breathing – not at all. There was no oxygen left _to_ breathe. She didn't have time to wonder why she was alive and conscious without any oxygen available. She prayed that the Judoon would at least transport the hospital back to Earth. They'd got what they came for, why let a whole building full of people die for no reason? Then again, they would all die anyway if Rose did not make the right choice.

Hissing breathlessly with the indescribable pain of motionless lungs, she crawled forward and grabbed the red extensions. Without a smidgen of hesitation, she yanked them apart. Immediately the MRI sizzled out and powered down. Danger averted. Lucky. Rose would have sighed with relief if she were able.

Weakness pulled at her oxygen-deprived muscles, but she forced herself to her feet again and to the ward across the hall, staring despondently out the window and pleading, silently, with the enforcers of the Shadow Proclamation: _Let us go, dammit!_

She smiled feebly when it began to rain, leaning solely on the window for support.

_Look, Martha,_ she thought. _It's raining upside-down on the moon. The Doctor would have loved that._

**ΘΣ … ΘΣ**

Martha sighed as she got dressed for Leo's party, listening to the news and wondering where Rose Tyler was now. She had woken to find her long gone, nowhere inside or outside the hospital, so she had had no choice but to simply go home. Rattled by events, and particularly by her own part in them, she had refused an interview, but that didn't mean she couldn't listen to what others had to say about it.

"Eyewitness reports from Royal Hope Hospital continue to pour in," blared the reporter excitedly, "and it all seems to be remarkably consistent." _Of course it does_, thought Martha glumly. _Because it's true. Just because you idiots are too blind to see it…_ "This, from medical student Oliver Morganstern –"

"I was there. I saw it happen," said Morganstern, appearing on the screen, "and I feel uniquely priveleged. I looked out over the surface of the moon." Martha smiled, remembering for herself the incredible experience of standing next an amazing person on the balcony off the patients' lounge as they 'looked out over the surface of the moon', standing in the earthlight and seeing the kind of beauty that could well be seen only by a select few others, ever. It was extraordinary, and she loved it. She only wished she'd had more time with Rose, to learn more about her, about what she did for a living. Dare she say she even missed her a little? The danger and the thrill she seemed to carry around her shoulders like it was just another accessory?

"I saw the Earth suspended in space, and it all just proves Mr. Saxon right. We're not alone in the universe. There's life out there; wild and extraordinary life."

Extraordinary. And Morganstern didn't even know the half of it. But it was more than that, she realized. It was everything. There was so much that she now realized she didn't know, so much to see and experience and discover and _do_. Where on Earth was she going to go from here?

She shook her head and wondered if she really wanted the chance to find out, on Earth.

**ΘΣ … ΘΣ**

And here they all went. She knew this was going to happen, and on any other day and in any other life – any _ordinary_ life – she would have tackled the problem like a true life challenge or something. Now, she was certainly in no mood for it. These petty little problems seemed so…_pointless_ now, after the first true taste of the universe she'd gotten.

Maybe it had all been a dream after all, as she wondered sometimes. Maybe none of it had ever been real, just wishful thinking on her part. But then…her life was forever changed by that single dream.

"I am _not _staying in there to be insulted!"

"She didn't mean it sweetheart, she was just saying that you look healthy!"

"No, I did not! I said, 'orange'!"

"Clive! That woman is disrespectin' me; she's _never_ liked me."

"Oh, I can't think why, after you stole my husband!"

"I was _seduced_! I'm entirely innocent! Tell her, Clive!"

"And then she has a go at Martha, practically accused her of making the whole thing up!"

_She and everyone else in the world, Mum._

"Mum, I don't mind. Just leave it." As usual, no one listened to her. No one cared. She was different from them, and she could see it more clearly tonight than she ever could before.

They continued to fight until, at last, Annalise broke, having had enough.

"Oh, I'm never talkin' to your family again!" And she stalked off. They continued to yell after her, but Martha didn't join in. Why should she? It wasn't like anything she could have to say would make a difference. Annalise was always heading for trouble, in the end. So she just stood there until eventually her family were all gone.

Then, over by the corner, she noticed something. A familiar figure silhoutted against the wall: Rose. She was watching without any identifiable expression on her face, but as soon as she caught Martha's eye she smiled. Hands in her black leather jacket pockets, she deliberately turned and walked away and out of sight.

She didn't even have to think about it; jacket in hand, Martha followed. She peeked around the corner into a barely-lit alley and walked down to the end, where Rose was waiting patiently outside a tall blue box.

Martha sighed with relief when she saw that she was still there and not off disappearing again.

"I went to the moon today," she said, now fully believing it.

"A bit more peaceful than down here," Rose commented, gesturing with a hand back the way they came, to her dissipating family.

"You never even told me who you are!" She complained, one of the many things that had been nagging at her since she'd disappeared.

"I'm Rose Tyler." Rose deadpanned.

"But what sort of species? It's not everyday I get to ask that…"

"Human!" volunteered Rose, raising her hand like she was at school. "London, Earth, jus' like you."

"Really?" Martha raised a skeptical eyebrow. She'd never met a human quite like Rose before. "What about that thing with the Judoon, then?"

Rose shrugged. "Must be a flaw in their scanners. Dunno. I've got one heart, normal human body temperature, I'm definitely not allergic to aspirin…" her voice trailed off.

"Who's allergic to aspirin?" asked Martha, startled.

"People are born that way. Well, some people. Well, when I say people…" Rose trailed off at the look on Martha's face.

"Right. So, what's with your so-called 'ship', then? Where is it?"

"You're looking at it."

"What, this thing?" Martha laughed, touching the panels of the blue box. "Definitely fit inside a cupboard, but the inside…" She shook her head and laughed again. Rose smiled knowingly, then exhaled deeply.

"I just thought, since you saved my life and I've got a brand new sonic screwdriver which needs road testing," she pulled out a thin silver tube-thing that looked vaguely like a pen from her jacket, twirling it between her fingers; "you might fancy a trip."

"What, into space?"

"Well–"

"But I can't," she stopped her before it became far too tempting. "I've got exams, I've got things to do! I have to go into town first thing and pay the rent. I've got my family going mad –"

"If it helps," Rose interrupted with an inexplicably dark look, "I can also travel in time."

"Get out of here."

"I can." She was dead serious, but Martha could not believe her; she just _couldn't._

"C'mon now; that is going _too_ far."

"All right, I'll prove it." Rose suddenly grinned at Martha, tucked her screwdriver-thing back inside her jacket, pulled out a key from the chain around her neck and disappeared inside the blue box.

A few seconds later, to her shock, the box began to disappear, a strange grind-and-roar noise filling the alley, a breeze riffling lightly across her forehead. As soon as it faded out of existence, however, it started to come back, just as solid as before, with the same wheezing noise it had made when it had disappeared. Martha backed up until her back hit the bins, which supported her as her legs wouldn't.

Rose stepped out casually, smiling smugly. She was twirling a pen in her hand.

"Here you go," she said. "Promised I'd give it back, didn't I?"

"I know, but…" Rose started to grin. "That was this morning!" She remembered, just, before it all began – or _when_ it all began, depending on how you looked at it. The complete stranger who had purposefully bumped into her for no apparent reason, stolen her pen, and then wandered off without so much as a 'by your leave'. That really was _her_!

"But…did you…" she found it rather difficult to form coherent sentences, which was actually rather embarassing. She took a breath and tried again. "Oh my God, you can travel in time!" She ended up saying, like Rose didn't already know.

Rose smiled somewhat indulgently.

"But hold on," Martha started, realizing something. "If you could see me this morning, why didn't you warn me not to go into work?"

"Because then you wouldn't be standing here asking that," she replied frankly. "Crossing into established events is strictly forbidden." She sounded like she was quoting someone. "Believe me, I learned that the hard way. Besides, I already knew I had stolen your pen, though not why, and where you were at the time." She shrugged. "It was written into the timeline. Why would I change that?"

"And _that's_ your spaceship?" she asked, walking up to the box in awe.

"It's called the TARDIS," reminded Rose.

"Time and Relative Dimensions in Space," Martha recalled aloud, mesmerized. She ran her hand across its surface, surprised to find that it felt like what it looked like. "Your 'spaceship' is made of wood," she told her, shaking her head. "And there's not much room. Bit cozy, isn't it?" She raised a suggestive eyebrow.

Rose rolled her eyes and opened the door.

"Take a look," she offered, gesturing like a hostess welcoming Martha into her home.

Martha looked her, wondering if it really looked like what she had seen in the hospital, despite all evidence to the contrary. She stepped inside, Rose following just behind her, stared for a moment, then walked back out past that…that…_impossible_ woman, eyes wide in utter disbelief.

"Oh, no, no," she muttered. "But…it's just a…_box_."

Inside, Rose leaned against the railing near the door and sniggered softly.

"But it's _huge_!" called Martha from outside, and Rose snorted. "How's it do that?"

She was by the door again but not willing to go back inside, looking back and forth between Rose and the console. Rose shrugged, biting her lip. The Slab was gone, thankfully. Martha knocked tentatively on the open door.

"It's _wood_."

"Yeah, I think we've established that," Rose muttered.

"It's like a box with that room just…" she paused, stepping inside again, "_rammed_ in."

"Never heard it put quite like that before," Rose admitted.

Martha stopped at the top of the ramp, staring at the time rotor.

Rose rolled her eyes, sensing that Martha was just…about to… Ah, there it was. She mouthed along with Martha's breathless whisper behind her back; "It's bigger on the inside!"

"Is it?" said Rose, feigning surprise. "Would you look that! I hadn't noticed."

She laughed at Martha's gobsmacked expression, shutting the door and bounding past Martha to the console.

"All right, then, let's get going. Allons-y! Oh," she frowned, pausing. "Ew. Allon-sy? Allonsy. No, no, definitely not right. That's just _wrong_. So wrong. That's _his_."

Martha shook herself from her stupor and followed her up to the console, staring at the numerous buttons and switches and levers and nobs that littered the surface.

"But…is there…a crew? Like a navigator and stuff? Where is everyone?"

"Just me," said Rose. She looked at the time rotor, briefly, and Martha could have sworn some kind of communication passed between captain and ship. Then, suddenly, Rose was everywhere, flicking switches and pressing buttons and shifting levers all over. It was like a kid hopping around on a sugar high.

"You're all on your own?"

Though she'd already asked once, Rose was still caught off guard. She grinned, though.

"Oh, sometimes there're…guests. Occasionally. Sort of. Sometimes. Now. Anyway, one quick trip to say 'thanks', then you'll be back home before anybody'll know the difference."

"One trip, yeah? All right, sounds fair enough." She paused, like she wanted to say something else, then shook her head and stopped.

"Well then," said Rose, moving around the controls and glancing briefly at the column again. "Close down the gravitic anomalizer," she pressed down on a lever that seemed too stubborn to budge an inch – she managed anyway, of course; "fire up the helmic regulator," she slammed her fist down on a button; "and finally…the handbrake. Ready?" she asked Martha.

"No," she replied, but had to smile anyway.

"Off we go, then." She threw another lever by the monitor. Immediately, the ship jarred violently, and Martha was forced to hang on to something – anything – for dear life. Rose fell to the ground in a heap, but came back up in moments, laughing with manic delight as the TARDIS shivered and shook around them like it was falling apart at the seams. Martha thought she was going to get sea-…or, well, space-sick.

"Blimey, it's a bit bumpy!" Martha exclaimed.

"Welcome aboard, Miss Jones!" Rose yelled back.

They somehow managed to shake hands across the console.

"It's a right pleasure, Miss Rose," she replied, grinning in spite of her discomfort.

* * *

_Written originally by Black Alya Wolf_

_Somewhat modified by Furyism_

A/N: Just an interesting little tidbit here: didn't River say that the reason for that noise – Matt Smith did great on his imitation, btw – was cuz the Doctor always leaves the handbrake on? And yet, in _Smith __and Jones_, he does release the handbrake. Even says so. Not very consistent on this show, are they?


	3. In It Thou Art My All Part I

A/N: Yes! Finally! I can update! Sorry for the wait folks, but whatever was wrong with the editor, support fixed it, so here's the next chapter.

**Episode Two  
****In It Thou Art My All, Part I**

"But _how_ d'you travel in time? What makes it _go_?"

Did it matter? Wasn't it enough that it did?

"Oh, let's just be a spoil sport about it, that's no fun at all." Rose said with a hint of sarcasm after a beat. "Martha, you don't want to know, it jus' _does_. Isn't that enough?"

She crawled over the console to press down a lever she couldn't reach that TARDIS told her would finally end the queasy roller coaster. And it did. Violently. They were thrown to the grating, and Rose wondered if the TARDIS had done that on purpose or if it had happened simply because this was only her second attempt manual flight.

Martha struggled to her feet.

"Blimey! Do you have to take a test to fly this thing?"

Rose shrugged blithely, climbing swiftly to her feet. "Dunno. Probably." _Bet he didn't pass it, either._

"An' you're not dead yet?"

Martha said it like it was joke, and Rose grinned at her accordingly. But her insides churned. N_o, I'm not. But I may as well be, Martha Jones. To look at me, you wouldn't think there was nothing left to look at, would ya?_

"Ah, it's not that bad," Rose assured Martha, picking up the woman's jacket from where it had fallen to the floor. She winked as she handed it over, "Never know where we could end up. Or when."

"Gonna take a while to get used to this, I can see," mused Martha aloud as she pulled on the jacket and zipped it halfway.

"Now, I promised one trip and one trip only," she said, looking at Martha, who, Rose noticed, tried her best not to appear forlorn.

She decided to ignore it, unsure if she could handle the company of another living being for much longer than this one trip. Even after traveling on her own for several months (she'd lost track of exact time a long while ago), Rose was still just barely getting a knack for it. She didn't want to endanger anyone, and certainly her habits would place everyone within five hundred feet of her in mortal danger.

"Outside this door," Rose gestured dramatically, as _he_ probably would, standing at the top of the ramp; "is something very new to you, although it could be new or it could be old," she had taken to rambling a bit like he used to, she supposed, but some things couldn't be helped. "One way or another, you will be amazed. So what d'you say, Martha Jones? Brave new world?"

They would have had a laugh over that, she knew. _So_ full of it. The thought made her sad, and a longing pang went through her hollow chest.

That was another reason not to travel with anyone. Traveling was enough to distract her, but when there was someone to look after, it brought back too many memories. Memories she'd tried to bury in time and space and the TARDIS library.

She had asked the TARDIS to take them somewhere maybe Elizabethan and safe, and got London fifteen ninety-nine as a result. They were supposed to be pretty close to the Globe, not long before _Loves Labours Lost_ would be performed. With any luck, they would get to see the man himself.

Rose had always wanted to ask the Doctor if they could go see Shakespeare. One of her English teachers at Jericho Comprehension had been absolutely obsessed with him and she wanted to see what all the fuss about this so-called "genius" really was. If they were even in the right place. She could only assume that the TARDIS knew what it was doing without the Doctor around.

Hopefully.

Predictably, of course, Martha had to ask, partly excited and partly apprehensive, "Where are we?"

"Take a look," Rose suggested to Martha with a smile. Back to the door, she opened it and gestured with a small jerk of her head without looking outside. "Go on."

Martha looked to Rose for confirmation and she nodded encouragingly. Tentatively, Martha walked out the doors of the TARDIS. Rose couldn't help but be reminded of _her_ first trip, her first proper one, at least, to the end of the world, walking out of a _real_ spaceship and onto a _real_ satellite where _real_ aliens were gathered to watch a planet they didn't even care enough about to research its history die. The magic and the wonder was dulled a bit by that bitchy trampoline, but it had been her first taste of something far greater and far beyond herself, something she never thought she would ever see nor ever deserve to get the chance to. The Doctor had changed that right quick, though, hadn't he?

And he hadn't even paid for the chips afterward.

She tried to direct her thoughts back to Martha, tried to focus on the excitement of _her_ excitement, tried to feel the thrill of "better with two" once again.

It didn't entirely work.

Rose stepped out, closing the door behind her and giving the blue panels a small, affectionate pat. She smiled sadly at the grim hum that thrummed beneath her fingertips.

Outside, London's past swam theatrically before them, which Martha wasted no time in pointing out.

"Oh, you're kidding me," she muttered, an echo of her earlier disbelief. She sounded more resigned than doubtful this time, though. Rose grinned in spite of herself. "You are _so_ kidding me! Oh my God, we did it! We traveled in time! Where are we? No…sorry," she said before Rose could answer. "Got to get used to this, whole new language. _When_ are we?"

"Look out!" Rose warned, reacting quickly to motion above them; she pulled Martha back toward the TARDIS. A window had opened in the building to the left and someone dumped a bucket of sewage directly in the spot they'd been standing in a moment before.

"Mind the loo!" A man shouted down. _Bit late for that…_

"Charming," Rose muttered, disgusted. "Sometime before the invention of the toilet," she answered Martha's question with a wrinkled nose.

Martha remained utterly undeterred, though, she had to admire that.

"I've seen worse," said Martha. "I used to work late night shift at A&E."

"You'll fit right in, then," Rose quipped with a wink, remembering in her mind's eye exploding Slitheen and other gooey aliens. "Anyway," she said abruptly, turning away from Martha. "Moving on."

"But are we safe?" Martha called to her before she could get very far. Rose stopped and turned to looked at her. "I mean, can we move around and stuff?"

"Sure," said Rose, perplexed. "Why shouldn't we?"

"It's like in the films," she said, a touch of fear in her voice. "You step on a butterfly, you change the future of the human race."

Oh. Right. Time stuff. She wracked her brains for a simple answer, feeling a little like a subordinate to Martha because she'd never thought to ask those kinds of questions while _she_ was travelling. Rose tended to just jump right into things without looking first. She wasn't so sure that had changed, though she had taken the time to do research recently.

"Well…tell you what: don't step on any butterflies," Rose finally decided on saying. Sounded like something _he_ would say, anyway. "What have butterflies ever done to you, anyway?"

Martha followed as Rose kept walking, who made a face at the squelching sound her footsteps made in the mess. Wonderful place.

"But what if…I dunno…what if I kill my grandfather?"

Rose looked over her shoulder with quirked eyebrows, amused. "You want to?"

"No."

"Well, all right then. Guess we don't need to worry about it."

Martha fell into step beside her, gawking around at everything they saw. Rose wondered vaguely if they were heading in anywhere near the right direction.

"And _this _is London!" Martha breathed in awe.

Rose nodded cheerfully. "That's right. Round about, ooh," she paused, pretending to think, like she was was an expert or something. Unfortunately, this reminded her of times with a certain broody bloke with a leather jacket and blatant jealousy toward pretty boys, so she stopped and finished her answer abruptly; "Fifteen ninety-nine."

Martha gave her a little bit of an odd look, but Rose walked on, deciding it was better to pretend not to notice.

"Oh, but hold on," Martha interjected suddenly, stopping Rose with a hand on her arm. "Am I all right? Not gonna get carted off as a slave, am I?"

"Nah," Rose dismissed. She never really thought about it much, but culture didn't seem to apply too heavily to time travellers, unless they did something to _really_ stand out, which was usually the case anyway. "Jus' walk around like you own the place, usually works for me."

She resolutely ignored the little voice in her head that whispered the name of someone else that technique used to work for, the one she'd really taken it from to begin with. She started off down the street again, weaving around people going about their nightly lives – for it was certainly night, thought Rose, looking up at the stars and delighting in the thrill that chilled every muscle and electrified every bone in her body. She loved the stars. Always had. Now she was living with them. And always would.

Alone.

"Besides," she added, mostly to break the silence, "you might be surprised. Elizabethan England's different, but not _that_ different."

"For example?" Martha challenged.

"For example…" Rose took a look around and, spying a man shoveling manure into a bucket as they passed him, sniggered softly to herself. She nodded to the man and explained with mirth, "There's recyclin'." Martha snorted. "Water cooler," she gestured to a couple of drunks chatting around a keg of beer.

A preacher was walking down the street, book in hand, prophesising nonsense at the top his lungs.

"And the Earth will be consumed in flame!"

Rose thought for a moment before nodding mock-seriously. "Global warming."

Martha laughed, and suddenly Rose felt that much lighter.

She glanced around, trying to determine how close to the Globe they were. Some distance away, she thought she could see the edge of a structure that was vaguely round, and did some quick reckoning to determine exactly where it was.

Without warning, she ducked into an alley, forcing Martha to jog to keep up, and grinned when she saw the Thames and the bridge and, beyond that, quite unmistakably, the Theatre. She'd spent some time in the library even before... Well, anyway, she'd just wanted to know a little more about the history of her little blue and green planet so that she wouldn't have to rely on the Doctor for everything.

"If I'm right, an' I usually am," she told Martha as she joined her, "we're jus' downriver to Southwark, right next to…" she waggled her eyebrows and waved her hand grandly in the direction of the Globe. Martha's eyes widened.

"The Globe Theatre!" She guessed, half-gasping, and Rose nodded enthusiastically, pleased.

"Containin'?" she prompted, grinning. Martha's jaw dropped.

"What, you don't mean – ?" Martha gaped. Rose snickered. "Is Shakespeare in there?"

Instead of answering, Rose offered her arm to Martha, who took it immediately. "Miss Jones," she said, mock-presumptuously, adopting a posh accent with her chin in the air; "would you like to accompany me to the Theatre?"

"Oh, yes," laughed Martha. "Absolutely, Miss Rose."

Rose grinned, destroying her act, and marched forward. "C'mon! When you go home, you can tell everyone you met Shakespeare!"

"Then I could get sectioned!" Martha added, faking excitement.

"Bein' sectioned's not that bad," Rose commented idly. "It's the ones who think you're sane you've got to watch out for."

Martha looked like she didn't know whether she should believe her or section her herself.

**ΘΣ ... ****ΘΣ**

The Globe thundered with deafening applause and scattered whoops and whistles. Rose cheered with them as she slammed her hands together, Martha taking after her lead. Onstage, the casting crew bowed to the affection.

"Amazing!" said Martha, sandwiched between Rose and a rather stinky fella wearing rags and an unevenly shaved beard. "Just amazing! It's worth putting up with the smell!"

Rose shifted in her jacket uncomfortably. It was _sweltering_, with all these bodies in such close quarters standing together. She wasn't completely sure she agreed with Martha. In spite of this, however, there was undeniably a certain…_thrill_ in the air, a dim roar of excitement and _magic_ and _history_ buzzing in the air around them, electrifying her every nerve.

"And those are men dressed as women, yeah?" Martha nodded to the actors.

Rose snorted, deciding not voice her thought that London never changed.

"Where's Shakespeare?" asked Martha. "I wanna see Shakespeare! Author! Auth –" she paused, looking across at Rose uneasily. "Do people shout that?"

Behind them, someone else had taken up the chant, until soon the whole theatre was ringing with it. They looked around in bemusement.

"They do now." Rose shrugged, unconcerned.

Shakespeare, acquiescing to the crowd's desires, skipped enthusiastically onstage from the back, blowing kisses to the audience as they cheered even louder. He had shoulder-length brown hair and a bit of a beard; not hardly what Rose thought he would look like in real life.

"He's a bit different to his portraits," Martha commented like she could hear what Rose was thinking. Rose didn't see her exactly complaining about it, though.

Shakespeare swept along the front of the stage like a singer at a rock concert, giving everyone in the front row high-fives.

"My English teacher always went on about him," Rose found herself saying. "Always said he was this great _genius_, the best playwright of all time. Probably right at that, all those quotes o' his…"

"Ah, shut your big fat mouths!" Shouted Shakespeare.

Rose smirked. She and Martha exchanged glances and simultaneously burst out laughing.

"You have excellent taste," continued Shakespeare, "I'll give you that. Oh, that's a wig!" he pointed to a man in the audience and more laughter followed. "I know what you're all saying. _Loves Labours Lost_ – that's a funny ending, isn't it? Just stops," he snapped his fingers. "Will the boys get the girls? Well, don't get your hose in a tangle, you'll find out soon."

The crowd started shouting, grumbling loudly, around them.

"Yeah, yeah, all in good time! You don't rush a genius!" he bowed.

"Humble," Rose muttered sarcastically.

Abruptly, Shakespeare lurched upright, stumbling back a little like he'd been pushed. Rose narrowed her eyes. Her gut began to sing a familiar tune.

"When?" Shakespeare asked rhetorically, then paused for effect. "Tomorrow night!"

The audience went wild.

"The premiere of my brand new play – a sequel, no less, and I call it…_Loves Labours Won_!"

Martha cheered enthusiastically with everyone else, and Rose started to, but hesitated._ Love Labours Won_? What was that? Having just about memorized a majority of the man's plays in school – or rather, the names of them – she thought she knew a thing or two about them, and she couldn't recall anything about one called_ Loves Labours Won_. So…what, then? Another mystery? An adventure waiting to happen? Something pleasant and fiery bubbled in the pit of her stomach.

As they left with the rest of the crowd, Martha said to Rose, "I'm not an expert or anything, but I've never heard of _Loves Labours Won_."

"Me neither," Rose admitted, her eyebrows wrinkling almost of their own accord.

"Have you got a mini-disk or something?" asked Martha, looking excited at the prospect. "We can tape it; we can flog it. Sell it when we get home and make a mint."

Rose cringed. "No."

But she had no reason to fear, Martha seemed to understand.

"That would be bad?"

"Yeah," Rose agreed vehemently. Like hell she would have someone that was under her responsibilty go and do something like _that_. "That would be…yeah, bad. Very bad."

"So, if it doesn't exist in the future, what happens to it now?" Martha inquired curiously, getting back on subject.

Rose licked her lips, thinking. There were only so many ways they could go about this, and most of them involved the possibility of diving headlong into unknown danger. She didn't care about herself, but she'd made a silent vow in Royal Hope Hospital that she would never let anything happen to Martha if she could help it.

Eventually, though, she sighed resignedly. She couldn't just _leave_, not now. Never that.

"Well, this was supposed to just be a quick trip in the TARDIS," she told Martha, "but I guess we might as well stay a little while longer, yeah?"

**ΘΣ ... ****ΘΣ**

Rose, keeping in mind what she had seen of Shakespeare onstage, what with the strange stumble and the abrupt decision to have the new play performed the next night, tracked the famous playwright's exit from the stage door with her eyes. She pulled Martha back and let the crowd disperse gradually around them, standing firm when they were just about trampled over. She kept her eyes sharp on Shakespeare's retreating figure, which was accompanied by two others, presumably actors or stagehands. They disappeared inside an inn with a rickety wooden sign that read _The Elephant_, somehow managing to avoid the masses, and Rose nodded to herself, filing away the name of the pub in her mind.

Martha was still enjoying the sights of long-ago London and didn't notice, so she appeared quite surprised when they finally broke free from the throng and immediately made a beeline for _The Elephant_.

"How d'you know where to go?" Martha asked, sounding impressed. Rose ignored her, trying to formulate what she would say to _Shakespeare_, of all people, the last person on any world she ever thought she would have a chance to speak with up-close and personal. It was a strange, oddly heady feeling.

The front room was mostly empty; surprising, since the play had just ended. Maybe everyone went home afterward. There wasn't even a bartender. For lack of anything better to do, Rose made her way upstairs, trying not to feel lost. Luckily, one of the doors across the landing was wide open, and Rose could dimly see the figure of Shakespeare sitting behind a desk, chatting away with two of the actors Rose recognized from the earlier play.

In the end, any preparation she might have had was blown straight out of the water by trepidation and nervousness. So she did what she always did best in a situation like this: improvise.

She stalked forward and purposefully knocked on the open doorframe, inviting herself in before Martha could protest against the wisdom of it.

"Pardon me," Rose spoke, though she was clearly interrupting something, "hope I'm not interruptin' or anything, Mister Shakespeare. That _is_ your name, right? Terrible shame if I've gotten it wrong, only I wondered if I might have a word with you, Mister Shakespeare."

Rose heard Martha mutter something incomprehensible and derogatory under her breath, but she only smiled charmingly. Shakespeare, she noticed, didn't even look up.

"Oh no," he muttered from the large desk he was sitting at. He had a metal mug of beer in one hand, his face quickly moving to the palm of the other in consternation. The other two other men twisted in their seats across from him to stare, startled, at Rose and Martha, and a maid worked silently in the corner. "No, no, no, who let you in? No autographs. No, you can't have yourself sketched with me, and please don't ask where I get my ideas from. Thanks for the interest, now shove –"

He stopped; he'd finally looked up. His eyes widened, suddenly perking up in interest.

"Hey, nonny, nonny," he said, eyebrows raised crudely. "You two, sit right down here next to me. And you two," he gestured to the two lads in front of him, "get sewn in them costumes, off you go."

The lady they'd passed earlier came in behind them then, going up to the young men. The maid followed her, eyes held steadily to the floor. "Come on, lads. I think our William's found his new Muse." The serving lady winked at Martha and Rose and turned away, dragging the two men with her and not looking back to see if the maid followed.

"Sweet ladies," started Shakespeare as Martha grinned and started forward. Rose followed her lead, settling herself in the uncomfortable wooden chair he offered. He eyed them with an appreciative look to which Rose blushed and ducked her head and Martha giggled a little self-consciously. "Such unusual clothes, so…_fitted_."

"Erm…verily," Martha replied, stumbling for correct vocabulary, "forsooth egads."

Rose winced but wisely chose not to comment other than to say, "Don't, Martha. Just…talk normal."

She reached into her jacket, an inside pocket, and briefly fingered the worn, familiar leather of the Doctor's wallet containing his psychic paper. She'd never given it back to him after…well, there hadn't really been time. She had carried it around with her every day since. Maybe she was clinging to the past, maybe she was just keeping something useful in case she needed it. Either way, she had it, and she pulled it out now and flipped the cover open, showing the paper to Shakespeare.

"I'm – " _a lot of things. Dead, but alive. Torn apart. A woman without a home. A lost wanderer. A time traveller. A dancer amongst the stars. Half a soul. Nobody, lost to histories and futures not even you could dream of, William Shakespeare._ Amazing, the number of things that can run through one's head in the fraction of a second. " – Dame Rose of TARDIS. This is my…companion, Martha Jones."

"Beauty's rose might never die," Shakespeare told Rose graciously, observing her carefully. She didn't blush again, but instead met his gaze steadily. "Interesting, that bit of paper," he pointed to it; "Blank."

Rose lowered it in confusion. Was he actually an alien? Did he know what psychic paper was, and could see right through it? Did he have psychic training of some kind, like the employees of Torchwood? Or…

"Genius," she breathed, drawing to the most acceptable conclusion. "Absolutely brilliant; that proves it."

"No," said Martha glancing over to the psychic paper and pointing at it herself. "It says right there; Dame Rose and Martha Jones. It says so."

"And I say it's blank," Shakespeare argued, perfectly confident that he was right.

"It's psychic paper," Rose explained to Martha, whose brow creased in confusion. "Sort of…hard to explain, sorry." She folded it up and placed it carefully back in the confines of her jacket. She sighed and muttered, "That makes things harder."

"Psychic?" Shakespeare repeated. "Never heard of that before, and words are my trade. More's the point, who are you, _delicious_ blackamoor lady and delicate Rose?" He put his head on his fist, leaning forward to stare pointedly at the two women.

Martha's eyes widened. She exhanged incredulous looks with Rose. "What did you say?" she asked with a little dubious laugh.

"Sorry, what?" said Rose. _Delicate_, her ass.

"Oops…isn't that a word we use nowadays?" he said to Martha. "An Ethiop girl, a swarth, a…queen of Afric? And you," he nodded to Rose, admiring her quietly, "such beauty I've never seen in a woman before now. Surely no Dame can you be, with eyes so bright and clothing unbefitting of a woman of such dull lineage."

"I can't believe I'm hearing this," laughed Martha. Rose was smiling slightly; she could hardly believe it, either. If only her mum could hear…

Her smile faded. Right. Her mum. In a completely different universe.

"We're from…a far-off land," said Rose. "Vezalunia."

_Vezalunia_? She wanted to laugh hysterically until it hurt to think. Where the hell had that come from?

"Excuse me!" Came a sudden, unexpected shout from the doorway. A man dressed far too elegantly for this time of night and this type of tavern came strutting in, looking furious as he rounded instantly on Shakespeare. "Hold hard a moment!" He was a bit round in the middle, at least a head shorter Shakespeare, and looked more like what Rose had expected of this place than she had come to see already. Behind him, the serving lady and dark-haired maid came back in, grimacing apologetically at Shakespeare as the intruder began to rant and rave. "This is abominable behavior! A new play with no warning? I demand to see a script, Mr. Shakespeare. As master of the revels, every new script must be registered and examined by me _before_ it can be performed."

"Lovely to see you too, Mr. Lindley," Shakespeare all but rolled his eyes in his sarcasm as he finally turned away from Rose. "Tomorrow morning, first thing, I'll send it 'round."

"We don't work to your schedule," Lindley spat angrily; "you work to mine! The script," he demanded, "now!"

"I _can't_." Shakespeare insisted resolutely.

"Then tomorrow's play," said the master, "is cancelled!" he turned around and began to stalk off, then paused on the landing right outside the door. "I'm returning to my office for a banning order," he told him. "If it's the last thing I do, _Loves Labours Won_ will _never_ be played!"

He walked away, swaggering confidently like every bit the pompous bastard he seemed to be.

Rose, at these recent revelations, couldn't help but feel immensely disappointed, like she'd had a biscuit dangled in front of her face just long enough for her to drool over it and then had it snatched away the minute she thought she might actually get around to having it. There was something wrong about this.

"Well, then," said Martha as she took a drink from the mug offered to her by the serving lady; Dolly, Shakespeare called her when he gave his thanks, who offered them drinks as Lindley ranted. "Mystery solved. That's _Loves Labours Won _over and done with. I thought it would be something more…you know…_mysterious_."

As if on cue, a loud scream could be heard from downstairs. They all jerked in their seats, then Rose jumped up and, without waiting for anyone else, took off running. _That's more like it_, she couldn't help but think.

"It's that Lindley bloke," Martha recognized as they left _The Elephant_ to see him stumbling around like he was drunk, holding his throat and spewing water in great thick streams from his mouth. A passersby had glimpsed him and shouted for help.

"What's wrong with him?" asked Rose, horrified. A curious crowd was starting to gather around them.

"Leave it to me, I'm a doctor. Or near enough." Martha said, taking charge.

Rose whipped out her new sonic screwdriver, a spare of the Doctor's that she'd found waiting for her on the console when she had gotten back from the hospital and the moon – courtesy of the TARDIS, she was sure. She deftly flicked the settings around to one that was probably more familiar to her than it should have been: the medical evaluation. She had used the med-eval a few times on other planets, like when there was a disaster and it was easier on the Doctor to have two examiners for the survivors: he did fine without the screwdriver, after all, so she got to use it. The setting was a psychic one, digging soundwaves into her brain, from the way the Doctor had described it, filing information like a big computer in her own little storage banks, which she could then access to determine the victim's injuries, if any.

With one last choke, Lindley collapsed in front of them. Martha bent to put her ear to his chest. Rose resisted the urge to cover her mouth in horror.

"What happened?" She gasped.

"Can't hear the heart…Mr. Lindley! C'mon, can you hear me? You're gonna be all right," Martha started to commence CPR, but then water sputtered from his mouth. "What the hell is that?" She looked up at Rose.

Swallowing hard, she bent over the body, being sure to use her own frame to hide her actions from bystanders. She flicked the switch on the screwdriver and pressed it to Lindley's neck pulse point, automatically wincing as the screwdriver did its work and burrowed into her head through her ears, filling her mind with information. It took a moment to decipher it all, but when she did, she frowned, tucking the screwdriver away.

"I've never seen a death like it," she said. "His lungs are filled with water; he drowned, and then…I dunno, it's like…someone punched out his heart, or something. Sort of. It's bruised. Dead."

She shook her head and stood, turning to Dolly behind them. What would these people think of inexplicable drowning and an invisible blow to the heart? Nothing good, she was sure. They'd probably start a riot, come to think of it.

They didn't need a riot right now.

"Miss," she said to Dolly, "this blo…_poor fellow_ has died from…" she hesitated. A heart attack? What terms did they use in the sixteenth century? "An…a-arrest of cardiovascular functions," she blurted, amazed at herself. Where had _that_ come from? "Horrible, but natural. Can you call a constable an' have 'im taken away?"

"Yes ma'am," she said as a maid come up behind her.

"I'll do it, ma'am," insisted the maid kindly, then turned and walked away to do as she'd said she would.

"Thank you, Lilith," Dolly said before the maid left earshot range.

Martha frowned at Rose during this exchange.

"Why are you telling them that?" she asked.

"This lot haven't got many reasonin' skills yet," Rose elucidated quietly. "If I tell them the truth, they'll panic and think it was witchcraft."

"Okay, what was it, then?" asked Martha.

Rose shrugged. She didn't have a clue. "Witchcraft?" It was an easy, simple explanation.

**ΘΣ ... ****ΘΣ**

They walked back slowly, subdued after what they had witnessed. Shakespeare collapsed wearily in a chair.

Dolly spoke up from the doorway. "I've got your room, Dame Rose. You and Miss Jones are just across the landing," she pointed in the general direction as Rose nodded in thanks. "It'll be a bit cosy, as there's only one bed, but all the other rooms are full up so I'm afraid you'll have to make do."

"Poor old Lindley," said Shakespeare once she had left. "So many strange events. Not least of all, this land of Vezalunia where a woman can be a doctor." He said that last as a half-question, half-statement, looking at Rose and Martha with some quandary.

"Where a woman can do what she likes," Martha corrected, straightening proudly. Rose cracked a tired smile.

"And you, Dame Rose," Shakespeare turned on her. "How can one so young have eyes so old?"

Old eyes? Hmm. That was a new one.

"I read a lot." Rose said with a nonchalant shrug. This was not entirely a lie: since the Battle of Canary Wharf, she had taken to alternately setting the TARDIS coordinates on "random" and burying herself in the wealth of knowledge that was in its library. She had spent countless nights sneezing away dustmites and would doubtless spend more doing the same.

"A trite reply," the writer acknowledged, oblivious. "Yeah, that's what I do. And you," he nodded at Martha; "you look at her like you're surprised she even exists. She's as much of a puzzle to you as she is to me, and yet…" he paused thoughtfully. "And yet why should poor beauty indirectly seek roses of shadow, since his rose is true?"

Rose shifted uncomfortably. She'd never much been one for ridiculous quotes like that and had often turned tail and run in the opposite direction whenever she smelled the signs of one. It was different, though hardly better, with Shakespeare _himself_ doing the talking. Not for the first time, she resented her own name. Maybe she should take a leaf from the Doctor's book and give herself a title in the place of a name. Ooh. That was a thought.

"'Like a canker in the fragrant rose'," Rose corrected mordantly, quoting from a sonnet she'd heard once.

"Quite. And I ought to use that," Shakespeare replied absently, and the time travelers exchanged amused looks.

"I think we should say goodnight," Martha intervened softly before more of Shakespeare's quotes could be revealed. She gave the Rose a pointed look, then strode out the door and into the hallway, not bothering to wait up.

"I must work," said Shakespeare once Martha had gone. "I have a play to complete," he stood and paced away from them, moving behind the desk. "I'll get my answers tomorrow, ma'am. I'll discover more about you and this constant performance of yours."

Rose smirked, her reply to that virtually inevitable. She just couldn't help herself, really: "All the world's a stage."

"Hmm," said Shakespeare, looking at her thoughtfully with a creased brow. "I might use that as well. Goodnight, Dame Rose."

"Night night, Shakespeare." She replied, turning away and grinning to herself.

Still, she couldn't help but think that Shakespeare suspected something. She wouldn't blame him if he did; she hadn't exactly done a thorough job of hiding them, had she? She hadn't even suggested the wardrobe room to Martha, hadn't even thought about the possibility of standing out in a society of propriety like they did. She had a feeling Shakespeare was even more of a genius than he let on; he had that look in his eyes that the Doctor sometimes got when he was presenting a cheerful front while really viciously attacking whatever his opposition happened to be. Then again, the man could probably keep a secret if he did find out. After all, if he was genius enough to figure it out, surely he'd know the importance of keeping it quiet?

In the room across the landing, Martha was standing by an old wardrobe, holding up a candle as she critically inspected every nuance of their room.

"Not exactly five-star, is it?" she commented, hearing Rose's footsteps.

"It'll do," Rose replied, thinking of dusty prisons and slimy dungeons. "I've stayed in worse, believe me."

"I haven't even got a toothbrush," Martha realized, though she didn't seem terribly troubled about it. Rose smiled a little. The day's events were catching up to both of them, she sensed.

"So…" said Martha, placing the candle on the bedside table and plopping down on the bed, laying on her side to face Rose, who was content to stay standing. "Magic and stuff? That's a surprise. It's all a bit…_Harry Potter_."

Rose grinned a genuine grin, sidetracked. "Ooh, jus' _wait_ till you read number seven. Definitely tear-worthy!"

"But is it real, though?" Martha asserted. "I mean, witches, black magic, and all that. It's real?"

"I doubt it," said Rose. She'd seen a lot of things in her time with the Doctor, all of them so extraordinary it would have been the easy way out to pass it off as magic. But she knew better. It was just science. Probably. "No magic out there for us."

Martha mulled that over silently, then looked up at Rose sharply. "Are you gonna stand there all night?"

"What? Oh…" Rose fumbled for a moment, trying to find an excuse not to sleep. She did not relish the thought of eight hours spent in a moldy old bed staring at the dark ceiling. It would be difficult to sneak away with the floorboards creaking the way they were.

"S'pose not," she finally muttered in defeat. "Shove over, then."

The mattress was lumpy and one of the worst beddings she'd ever laid on, but it was a bed and it was better than the floor. She laced her fingers together over her stomach and leaned back against the wall, half-sitting up. Martha, who'd taken off her jacket, used an arm to prop up her head as she looked down at Rose, who was thinking.

"So, what then?" Martha asked. "If it's not witchcraft, what killed Lindley?"

Rose was silent for a while. She wished the Doctor were here. He'd know what to do, what to say, how to solve this. He'd probably know exactly who was behind this, exactly how to get rid of them, exactly how to keep it from ever happening again, without really having to think about it. Then he would take her to some random planet where they'd have a laugh about it and compare interplanetary chips to London's and get themselves into trouble by scandalizing the locals or something.

Her head tilted to the right, half-expecting to see him there. He wasn't. Martha was. She looked back at the ceiling quickly, examining the wood like it held the secrets to getting him back to her.

That's what she needed to do, what she'd been trying to do for months. Get him back.

"I dunno," she answered Martha at last, breathing out heavily. "Never seen anything like it, but that's not saying much. The universe is really, really, really big." _Though sometimes not big enough._

"What is it that you do, exactly? What d'you travel for? Don't you have a home to go back to, on Earth?"

"The TARDIS is my home." Rose replied stoically.

And it was true. The TARDIS had always seemed more like home to her than the council estate ever had. After the Battle, she had packed up her mum's flat and turned in the keys. It gave her a bit of closure and provided some time for her to realize that she had to somehow find a way to get the TARDIS to keep going or else she would go mad.

"But what do you _do_?" Martha persisted.

"Everything I can," said Rose lightly.

"Why?"

Rose shot Martha an amused look. "Why not?"

Martha didn't have anything to say to that.

"It looks like witchcraft," said Rose, speculating aloud now. "But it can't be. Witchcraft is a dead-end explanation for things no one can explain. I s'pose someone could be using psychic energy or somethin', but I don't think a human could be that powerful. At least, I've never seen a human like that before. Martha," she said suddenly, turning on her side, "what are 'spells', exactly?"

Martha frowned, puzzled. "I don't know…energy?"

"But what channels that energy?" Rose prompted.

"Wands, weapons, runes, I dunno…words?"

"Words," Rose confirmed, nodding. "Mr. Lindley had just visited _Shakespeare_, Martha. There's got to be a connection." Or maybe she was trying too hard and coming up with nonsense.

"Like what?"

"The new play, of course," Rose said, eyes widening. She sat up. "_Words_, Martha! Mr. Lindley wanted to stop the play from being performed, didn't he? But then, out of the blue, seconds after he leaves, he drops dead, and we can't tell who killed him? What kind of a coincidence is that?"

"You think there's a spell in _Loves Labours Won_?" voiced Martha skeptically. Rose shook her head.

"Maybe not a _spell_, exactly, but _something_. For all we know, Shakespeare's an alien."

Martha opened her mouth to respond, but then, for the second time that night, a bloodcurdling shriek pierced the night. They scrambled to their feet and bolted from the room, sprinting across the landing in the direction of the disturbance: Shakespeare's room. Rose rolled her eyes.

Bloody typical. Maybe he _was_ an alien.

When they got there, there was a body on the ground and the window was thrown wide open. The cool night breeze had blown out the candles so only moonlight filtered into the gloom. Shakespeare sat wide-eyed at his desk, appearing to have just woken from a doze. Trusting Martha to care of the woman on the floor, Rose ran to the window, scanning the surrounding area outside.

Her jaw dropped. There was a…well, a _witch_, on a _broom_, flying into the moonlight and cackling at the top of her lungs. If she had never seen a creepy thing before in her life…

"Her heart gave out," said Martha from behind her, leaning over the form of Dolly Bailey. She looked at Rose, alarm clearly etched in her expression. "She died of fright."

"Martha," said Rose in a low voice, turning around slowly. "I just saw a witch."


	4. In It Thou Art My All Part II

**Episode Two**

**In It Thou Art My All, Part II**

Dawn found them in Shakespeare's room, sitting in front of his desk. The man himself was staring out the window, which they had yet to close. Dolly's body had been cleared out, but the constable was getting suspicious. After all, that made two deaths in one night, and both of them were in or around _The Elephant_, found by the same people: two strange women and Shakespeare. Anyone would have a right to be suspicious.

Martha had gone back to her and Rose's room to get a bit of shut-eye, but only managed to get a few hours in before giving up. Rose had spent the night looking up witch-like aliens in the TARDIS library, but had come up empty.

"Oh, sweet Dolly Bailey," Shakespeare murmured. He turned from the window to face them, candlelight dancing athwart his face. "She set off three bouts of the plague in this place; we were run like rats. But what could have scared her so?" He sat down and put his head in his hands. "She had such enormous _spirit_."

Rose had no words to offer.

"But the thing is," Martha spoke up, looking at Shakespeare, "Lindley drowned on dry land, Dolly died of fright, and they were both connected to _you_."

"She only got in the way," Rose interrupted before Shakespeare, outraged, could try to defend himself. "Dolly, I mean. It was bad luck on her part. She was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I think she saw something someone didn't want her to see." She looked pointedly at Martha, whose eyes widened as she thought about it.

Maybe the constable's suspicion had some merit, after all. That was why they were here, Rose mused. Intergalactic police, better than the Judoon, investigating mysterious murders across the stars.

Right.

"What about what you saw last night?" Martha asked Rose. "You said you saw a witch, yeah? And _you've_ written about witches…" she nodded to the man from across the desk between them.

Rose winced.

Shakespeare's blue eyes narrowed. "I have? When was that?"

Rose glared at Martha, who subsided meekly. Shakespeare looked between them curiously, a calculated gleam to his eyes. He seemed to let it pass further unquestioned, however.

"Peter Street spoke of witches," he said, frowning.

"Who's Peter Street?" Rose asked.

"Our builder. He sketched the plans for the Globe."

"D'you think he might know something?" said Martha, and they looked at her.

"Why should he?" Shakespeare returned, testing.

"Well, whatever's going on, it has something to do with that new play you're writing, doesn't it? Stands to reason it has to do with the Globe, too."

"But what?" Rose interjected.

"It's just a theatre," Shakespeare added.

Rose sighed and stood, unable to keep still any longer. She paced as she talked.

"Martha, you were there, last night, at the play. You said it was worth the smell. Why?" She didn't give her a chance to answer, though, going on more rapidly; "Because you could _feel_ it, feel the _magic_." She rounded on Shakespeare then. "You should know, up there on that stage, in front of all those people, yeah?"

They didn't reply. Rose sighed again, wringing her hands in agitation. There was something she was missing, something _so_ close, dammit.

"You can make people cry," she continued, mostly just to break the silence. She found that talking helped her think. "Make them cheer, and dance, or whatever, just by writing. All those _words_ – you can change people just by _talking_ –" She pulled up abruptly, staring at a wash basin next to a wall and not really seeing it. Talking. Wasn't that what the Doctor had always done best? Talking, talking, talking, about everything and nothing and about things that could save them or kill them or get them in trouble, as he was prone to do. He had _changed_ people by talking. Changed her.

"Changed people's minds," she whispered, more to herself than to Martha or Shakespeare. She turned to face them slowly. "You can change people's minds in the Globe…" she shook her head. "If you can…_exaggerate_ that, control it, jus' imagine…"

They were silent for a long moment after that.

"It's like your police box," mused Martha, who had turned in her seat to watch Rose pace. "Small wooden box with all that _power_ inside."

Something inside Rose withered a little, but she wasn't entirely sure what it was. She thought it might be a good thing, though, because she smiled a little in spite of herself. Martha grinned back.

Rose turned back to Shakespeare. "But I bet Peter Street would know who's behind this. Can we see 'im?"

Shakespeare shook his head sadly. "Won't get an answer. Month after finishing the Globe, lost his mind."

"What happened?" asked Martha quickly.

"Started raving about witches, hearing voices, babbling. His mind was addled."

"Where is he now?" questioned Rose.

"Bedlam."

"What's bedlam?" asked Martha.

"Bethlam Hospital. Madhouse."

"Right," Rose nodded, already decided. "Let's go, then. Come on if you're coming." She started for the door, already planning to ask someone for directions to the madhouse in a way that wouldn't seem too strange.

"Wait!" Shakespeare called as Martha made to follow. "I'm coming with you. I want to witness this first-hand."

**ΘΣ**

Rose was already well ahead of Shakespeare and Martha, who were chattering away about the made-up Vezalunia world, so she stopped and asked someone she thought she recognized as the manure-shoveler from the night before for directions rather than interrupt the two of them. The man gave her a strange look, but told her anyway. It was only after she finally made sense of what the man was saying that she realized Shakespeare and Martha had stopped some ways back. Martha was holding up a hand, trying to stop Shakespeare, who was blatantly flirting.

Rose rolled her eyes. Honestly, end-of-the-world kind of stuff, and people still found time for _flirting_, of all things. Jack Harkness would be proud. Now, _there_ was a match. Jack and Shakespeare, what a pair. Shoulda gone to Elizabethan England while the captain was still around!

"But Martha, this is _town_," Rose heard Shakespeare protest as she came stalking up to them.

"_Hello_," she interrupted before Martha could retort. "We've got a couple of murders to investigate, mind – we can have a good flirt later."

Shakespeare gave her an amused, brassy grin. "Is that a promise, noble Rose?"

She winked, unable to stop herself. "It just might be, Mister Shakespeare. Now, _move_."

Bethlam Hospital was more than a madhouse, and Rose would know, as she had been to plenty of them before, and not all of them were from Earth. But this…this was…_inhuman_. It was a dungeon, though Rose had never expected a hospital to be in such a place. Screams rattled the Earth and shook the chains of the bound and trembled against the bars of the confined. It was a prison in which the mad went madder, kept from all ties of society until there was nothing left but the barest of their own instincts.

It was humanity at its worst and it made Rose sick. She wished more than ever for the Doctor's hand to hold as they passed through the doors and into corridor after corridor of tortured souls. Laughter – mad, maniacal laughter – shook the walls and droning, frightened, raging voices filled the air.

On some level, she thought she might envy them, just a little. At least _they_ had physical proof of their pain, physical proof of their insanity, their terror, their anger. She did not. Yet.

Rose's face was carefully stony and she walked with a stiff gait in front of Martha and Shakespeare, but when one particularly ardent madman stuffed his arms through his bars and groped lecherously at Rose, she yelped and leapt away, shaken, nearly knocking Martha over. Martha gripped her arms and steadied both of them, glaring heatedly at the psycho. Shakespeare looked like he was debating whether or not it was worth getting their guide to open the cell door so he could tear the guy to pieces.

"Are you all right?" Martha murmured, concerned. Regaining her composure quickly, Rose exhaled slowly and nodded, stilling her trembling limbs with effort.

"Fine," she replied, and kept walking. She felt Martha's gaze boring into her back the whole time, but ignored it. All they had to do was get what they came here for and get out. Her eyes hardened. She wouldn't mind an opportunity to shut this place down, either. What the hell were they doing to these people? Not _treating _them, certainly. Then she remembered: this was probably the only cure they knew of, so early in technology and medicine. Still, she couldn't imagine that anything they had here could ever work, even a little.

Behind her, Martha was making disgusted noises, looking around her in horror and gasping in shock when someone rammed their shoulder into the bars of their cell in an attempt to either get out or get to her; it was hard to tell. Shakespeare walked on without much of an expression on his face other than an occasional wrinkling of the nose.

The guard that was leading them to Peter Street was almost as mad as the madmen he guarded.

"Does my Lord Shakespeare and Dame Rose wish to while the time with my whip and these men?" he suggested crudely as they traipsed down the corridors. "I've whipped these madmen. They'll put on a good show for you. Beggin' ol' good bedlam."

"No, I don't." Rose glared indignantly. How _dare_ he? _Whipping_? No wonder these poor people were crazy! The only treatment was _scaring_ them into sanity!

"Oh, well, um, wait here, my Lord," said the guard distractedly to Shakespeare and went off down the corridor, leaving them in the middle of it.

"Is this what you call a hospital, yeah?" Martha asked Shakespeare angrily. "Where the patients are _whipped_ to entertain the gentry? You put your _friend_ in here?"

Rose smiled to herself. She'd let Martha handle this one.

"Oh, it's all so different in _Vezalunia_," Shakespeare said, rolling his eyes sarcastically. He clearly didn't believe life could be any different than it was here, even if women were given more grounds for thought in "Vezalunia" than they were in England.

"But you're clever!" Martha asseverated. "Do you honestly think this place is any _good_?"

"I've been mad, I've lost my mind," nodded Shakespeare. There was a look to his eye that reminded Rose of the Doctor. "Fear of this place set me right again. Serves its purpose."

Martha's eyes softened minimally. "Mad in what way?"

Rose thought she knew, though. Maybe her English teacher's obsession had some benefits, after all.

"You lost your son," she whispered, biting back tears that threatened to fall on behalf of this historical legend.

Rose knew all too well what it felt like. The feeling of being dragged slowly across a field of rusty barbed razors and then dipped in a vat of vodka haunted her in the quiet hours when she wasn't trying to satisfy the empty ache beneath her flesh that was her craving for the stars. And she remembered how the Doctor's own grief for his people had been so blackened and charred on some days she often wondered how he could ever go on to smile and be the hero he really was.

Shakespeare looked at her an instant. The look in his eyes painted a picture of pain that was echoed by the terrified and troubled screams of the institutionalized in the hospital. His expression, however, lacked definition, a mask of sanity and jocularity to hide all his eyes told.

"My only son," he concurred. "The Black Death took him. I wasn't even _there_."

Martha looked like she hated herself in that moment.

"I…I didn't know, I'm sorry."

"Made me question everything," Shakespeare went on as though she had not spoken; "The futility of this fleeting existence – to be or not to be. Oh," he paused, mouth open, "that's quite good."

Rose agreed. What the hell was the _point_? Maybe it was the fact that the Doctor was still alive somewhere that kept her going; kept her hoping that, impossibly, he would still be around to hate her for doing something stupid enough to get herself killed just because she didn't want to live anymore. Maybe.

Sometimes hope wasn't so good an emotion, she reflected.

However, Rose hid all of her thoughts by stealing from the technique Shakespeare had already used: a mask of jocularity. She smirked at him, exchanging short, amused glances with Martha. "You should write that down," she encouraged, eyes twinkling.

"Mmm, maybe not," the playwright mused aloud. "Bit pretentious?"

Rose was saved the sufferings of replying to that by the guard, who called down to them from the end of the corridor. They were then led inside a cell in which a man was slouched over in pain with his back to them.

"Think a bit dangerous, that one," said the guard derisively as he unlocked the cell. Rose felt something in the pit of her stomach surge, like a furious, crackling storm. "Don't know their own strength."

"I think it would help if you didn't _whip_ them," Rose snapped, feeling that hot, burning fury again and relishing in it. "Now get outbefore I turn that whip on _you_, you sorry fuc–" Shakespeare cleared his throat loudly and Rose clamped her lips on the string of cursing that threatened to burst from her.

The guard glared at her murderously and then grudgingly left, the cell door swinging closed behind him.

Rose turned to Peter, her scowl softening swiftly. She made her way around the bench to Peter's front. Shakespeare jerked, as if he wanted to do something to stop her, but then thought better of it.

"Peter Street?" she said, kneeling down before him to try and get a glimpse of his face. The slouched form didn't respond.

"He's the same as he was," Shakespeare warned duly, looking sad. "You'll get nothing out of him."

Rose glared at him. She put a hand on Peter's shoulder and tried to look into his gaunt, angular face. "Peter," she adressed more firmly. The man's head shot up, bright green eyes wide and wild.

Rose jerked back, startled. When her heart slowed to normal, she leaned forward again, touching Peter's cheek gently with one hand. He didn't react, but his eyes did stop darting everywhere to settle intently on hers. She tried valiantly not to be disturbed and mostly succeeded.

"Peter," she said softly. He was still looking at her, appearing slightly frightened but calm enough. She didn't move her hand, even though his face felt grimy and sweaty beneath her fingers and his stubble brushed against her skin uncomfortably, like little needles. "My name is Rose. I need you to tell me about the Theatre." He didn't respond. Rose bit her lip, hesitating. When she continued, she talked instinctively. "You remember the Theatre, Peter? The Globe? You built it, an' it's beautiful. Jus' forget everything else that's happened since then, all right? _Remember_. One year back, when everything was perfect. Everything else…it's just a story. A bad dream."

Beneath her hand, Peter's face relaxed as she talked. Rose dropped her hand and touched one of his, gently, then picked it up and held it in her own. His eyes grew less wild, more focused. His body fell limp against the bench and he leaned back, laying on his side, hand still clutched in Rose's own.

"Witches spoke to Peter," Peter began. His teeth were rotted and black, his eyes still shining inhumanly bright, his skin glowing golden in the light of the torches lining the walls outside the cell. He grinned the grin of the insane. "In the night, they whisper. They _whisper_," he made a clawing motion with his free hand, like he could tear the whispers out of his head, his body trembling and voice growing slowly hysterical. Rose squeezed his hand and he stilled. "Got Peter to build the Globe to their design. The fourteen walls…always, fourteen."

Fourteen? What did that have to do with anything? Was it important? She saw Shakespeare and Martha exchange confused looks out of the corner of her eye, but she didn't dare break eye contact with Peter.

"When the work was done…" he laughed shortly, a mirthless laugh of despair and irony; "they…they snapped poor Peter's wits."

"But where are they?" Rose asked delicately. "Where did you see the witches, Peter?"

Peter did not answer, eyes unblinking, trembling with hysterics and fear and insanity. Rose leaned closer, until she could taste the horrible stench of his breath.

"Peter, _please_," she insisted. "You have to remember. _Where were they?_"

Peter breathed heavily, as though gathering about him whatever wits he had left or that had been gathered in Rose's presence.

"All Hallow's Street." He seethed at last.

"Too many words!" An unfamiliar, alien voice hissed over her shoulder. Rose jumped back against the opposite wall, flinging herself away from Peter and, subsequently, Martha and Shakespeare, as well.

"What the _hell_?" said Martha, taking an inadvertent step back.

"Just one touch," the witch stood, holding up a finger, "of the heart." She bent over, placing her hand on Peter's chest.

"No, _don't_!" Rose shouted. Peter screamed, and the witch inhaled deeply as his body went still.

"_Witch!_" Shakespeare proclaimed, pointing fervently over Peter's dead body. "I'm seeing a witch!"

"And who would be next, hmm?" The witch waggled her gnarly, long fingers in the air. "Just one touch," she reminded. "Oh, oh, _stop_ your frantic hearts! Poor, fragile _mortals._" She spat, disgusted.

Martha panicked, spinning around and rattling the cell bars, which were unfortunately locked, and demanding to be let out. Rose forced herself to remain calm, but it didn't work very well. She felt like joining Martha – she could unlock the cell with her screwdriver, except that the witch was blocking her way and she really needed to be brave enough to find out who she was.

Rose supposed this wasn't really the best experience for Martha on her first trip. Why couldn't they have landed somewhere nice? Paris maybe, or Italy. She had always wanted to take a trip to Hawaii, too. Maybe they'd go there next, or just someplace familiar that she'd already been to and knew a little better.

"Who will die first?" The witch demanded, waving her hands threateningly. Rose backed up a step more, her back hitting the cold, grimy stone wall. "Hmm?"

Rose inhaled sharply. There wan't much else she could do. She was the only one who stood a chance against whatever this thing was. She recalled the Judoon and their stupid scanners: _"__Unknown species, part-human. Detain for further questioning!"_ She prayed now that the theory she had been avoiding theorizing even in her head was right.

"If you're lookin' for volunteers," Rose said, stepping forward, "you've got one right here. Jus' leave _them_ alone." She nodded to Shakespeare and Martha, who gave up and turned to stare at Rose incredulously. The witch glanced between them, looking oddly curious.

"Don't!" Martha exclaimed rather unexpectedly, capturing the witch's attention.

"Martha," Rose warned. She couldn't afford someone else playing hero right now. There was a furious fire in her, an anger toward this so-called _witch_ for what she had done to Peter. Her fear had not faded, but it was unimportant.

She stepped closer to the witch until all she had to do was shift her weight and they would be touching. "I'm right here," she said, getting the alien's focus away from Martha. "Go ahead."

The witch hesitated. Rose's eyes narrowed. "Well? What are you waiting for? Do it! Kill me! Go on; just _kill_ me! KILL ME!" She spread her arms out to either side of her as if inviting the death touch. The witch flinched back, perturbed. Rose gazed unrelentingly into her black, depthless eyes. "Be still my heart," she whispered.

Then the witch grinned. She raised a hand between their respective bodies. Rose didn't so much as twitch. She felt no fear, no resignation, no…nothing, except that ever-burning fire, that anger and hatred for the…_evil_ that this thing represented. And if what she had vaguely planned did not work, and she really did die, well...

_Finally_, was all she could think.

Almost reverently, the witch touched her cold, warped hand to Rose's cheek, almost cradling her head.

Rose's world exploded into golden flame.

Pain cracked through her skull, searing like liquid fire down her spine until it was burning and writhing and twisting inside of her. She closed her eyes, overwhelmed, and then opened them again quite suddenly, stumbling backward dizzily in shock. Her ears rang with the rushing, howling sound of an invisible wind, _howling_, just continuous _howling_, like a wolf in mourning.

The pain was too much. She opened her mouth to scream, but all she could hear was the howling. She could see the universe, its creation and its death, and then everything between. She could see stars live and die, planets rot and melt away, love sear through the fabric of time and space, anger scorch the worlds, burn them, until _everything_ was burning, just _burning_, nonstop, like it couldn't stop; a fire that ruled the cosmos.

Through it all, there was a constant feeling of familiarity, as if she had been through this once before and would again, repeatedly, until she was burned out and dead, an empty husk of ashes to be scattered as fuel for that incessant fire. And she _had_ done this before, she remembered. She had saved the Doctor, and he had saved her, but now there was no one to save her and she was going die, _diediedie_, and ___**die**__!_

She could see everything, the past and the present and all the possible futures, and it _hurt_. But it was there, and so was her rage, a coldly burning rage that steeled her resolve and braced her against something she could not and would never understand. All of her pain, grief, and loneliness of the past months coaslesced into a single, seething mass of unadulterated, righteous fury, and she welcomed it, welcomed the respite from the agony of a loss she should not have ever had to endure but _had_, for a universe that really could not care less. Rose took a deep breath, inhaling the dust of the worlds, smelling the filth of a dungeon she really couldn't feel herself standing in any longer.

Then she calmed. The pain numbed, became nothing but background noise. The fire dimmed, though it never stopped burning, and the images exploding like fireworks in her head slowed until she could barely see any at all unless she really wanted to. She remembered who she was, where she was, and the problem at hand. Time was like a rack of movies in her head, movie after movie after movie just waiting to be played.

She prodded gently at a waiting image of the past, then found herself consumed by thoughts of witches and words and power and grief and pain and _howling_, then gave up the image readily, committing to memory only the things she knew she absolutely needed to know, her rage the only thing keeping her sane among the twirling spin of chaos.

Then she swam through the golden, molten fire that made up her mind, not even feeling the pain of it anymore because she had felt worse pain before and had survived it mostly intact. She looked for more, looked for _clues_, looked for _him_, but knew, in the back of her mind, that she could do no more than give herself hope, because otherwise something would come to balance everything out and she would regret whatever she had done for the dozens of eternities that may or may not follow.

_She's standing on a deserted, bleak beach. The sky is silver with a marble cover of rolling clouds, and there must be a million butterflies stampeding in her chest because her heart is fluttering frantically against her throat as though beating to get out and run off, fly away; never looking back at all the fear and sorrow that crowds the cold ocean behind her._

_A little ways away, the Doctor fades into existence. He looks exactly as she's remembered him. He wears a black suit with white trainers and a dark blue shirt underneath the jacket. He's got a bit of stubble on his face and his eyes are dark and sunken and his skin is way too pale but she thinks his flyaway brown hair looks just as great as it ever did. His head turns and suddenly they're looking at each other and the beach doesn't exist._

"_Where are you?" He asks._

"_Inside the TARDIS," she answers, which she thinks is odd because she is quite clearly _not_ on the TARDIS and has no idea why she should think she is. "An' you? Where are we?"_

"_Norway," says the Doctor._

"_Right."_

"_Fifty miles or so from Bergen. This place," he gestures to the ocean and the beach around them, "is called 'Darlig Ulv Stranden'. Bad Wolf Bay."_

_She should be surprised, but isn't, seems to have already had that knowledge, which is an odd sensation since she has no idea what the hell is going on. Wasn't she just in London? Getting killed?_

"_I know," is all she says, and the Doctor does not seem to think this is strange._

"_How long have we got?" He asks._

_Maybe it's the salty air, but her eyes start to sting. "Just about three minutes now. Sorry I couldn't do better. Wasn't easy to get this far, believe me."_

_He walks forward so they're standing almost toe-to-toe. She longs to reach out for him, but knows, somehow, that she can't. She's not really here. She's on the TARDIS._

"_Are you alone?" She asks him. He shakes his head a little._

"_Sort of, but _they_ followed me. Thought they might feel better if I let them."_

_Rose looks over his shoulder to see who 'they' is, though she already knows. Mum, Pete, and Mick are standing some distance away from them. She quirks her eyebrows at the Doctor and he smiles tiredly._

"_Thought we needed privacy. Said you'd already told them goodbye."_

_There was something wet on her cheeks now. "Guess I sort of did. Give 'em all a big hug for me, yeah?"_

_The Doctor nodded. "Will do. She's pregnant now, your mum. Three months."_

_Rose laughed. "Give her my congrats. It's about time. I'm gonna be a big sister!"_

_The Doctor laughed, too._

_It was very sad, as far as laughter went._

"_How long's it been, for you?"_

"_Six months."_

_Rose nods. "A bit longer than that here. I'm afraid I can't say how long, exactly; we've got an eavesdropper."_

"_Bad Wolf?"_

"_Yeah. Needed a reason to...well, I jus' really needed it at the time."_

_Rose is surprised, yet not, that the Doctor knows she's there, yet not. It's all very confusing, really._

"_I guess the time differences switched."_

_Rose sniffed by way of agreement. "Guess so."_

"_What have you been doing?"_

_She snorts unhappily. There's too much to say, she feels, and she wants to say it all but can't because it just sticks in her throat along with her pounding heart, and he's _there_, right in front of her, and she can't even think of what to say!_

"_Traveling." She finally tells him, her voice too strangled. "Mostly. An' reading. Still trying to figure some of this stuff out. The TARDIS and Bad Wolf can only help so much."_

"_Alone?"_

"_No. Not anymore. I was, at first. Then I met Martha. That all right?"_

"_What? You having a companion? I think it's brilliant!"_

_Her tears are falling thick and fast now. She hears a soft beep in the distance and knows instinctively that it doesn't come from the beach. There is only a minute and a half left._

"_I'm burning up a sun," she blurts, half-hysterical, and the Doctor smiles at her, proud._

"_Rose Tyler. Defender of the Earth."_

_She chokes back a sob._

"_I'm working at Torchwood. Your dad offered me a job there. Figured it'd at least get me on my feet. And it keeps me close to the front lines, so to speak. Met a girl, Mika Vora. She helped me find you here."_

"_That's good." She managed._

_They share a look. She could look into his eyes forever, but they only have twenty seconds._

"_I love you," she declared firmly before she lost her nerve. She's not sure if he can understand her through her tears. "I really do, an' I needed to let you know, now. 'Cos this is goodbye. And I'll always love you, Doctor."_

_He smiles shyly, sadly, and it feels like the world is ending around her._

"_Rose Tyler – "_

Maybe hope was good for something, after all.

Gradually, the fire faded from her skin, from her eyes, receded from the depths of her soul and ceased to lick at her insides, ceased to do anything at all but smolder somewhere in the pit of her stomach, waiting, churning, burning softly, gently, ready to kill her when she was truly ready to die.

She wasn't, she thought, anymore. And the powers of a goddess weren't worth dying for when she had something to look forward to, now.

Calmly, she looked up at the 'witch', eyes cleared, rage controlled.

"Fourteen," said Rose softly. "Fourteen sides, fourteen lines in a sonnet, fourteen-planet star system. There's power in words, and what's in a name?"

She nodded to the shellshocked Shakespeare, who appeared utterly unable to answer.

"Nothing. It's jus' a word. And you," she looked back to the witch, who, frightened, backed away quickly; "you hide, using words…so many words…" She shook her head sadly. "Too many words." Then she frowned. The witches…the universe could not afford to have them interfere with time itself. They had to leave. And there was really only one way to do that. "But not anymore. I name you _Carrionite!_"

The witch screamed before she faded from existence. Rose allowed herself to feel a deep well of satisfaction somewhere in her gut.

Martha backed away from the cell door warily, looking very much like her world had just been turned upside down – again.

"What did you do?"

"I named her." Rose shrugged, avoiding the obvious for the even more obvious. At Martha's uncomprehending look, she elucidated, "The power of a name. A bit crude, but it works. Obviously."

"But before that," said Martha, as Rose had known she would. "It looked like you were…"

"Burning," Shakespeare finished, an unidentifiable look in his eyes. Martha nodded, still seeming awed.

Rose wasn't entirely sure how to explain. She didn't want to talk about Bad Wolf, because that would mean talking about the Doctor, and no matter the hope this recent experience had just rekindled, she wasn't ready for that. She was curious as to what, exactly, Martha and Shakespeare had seen, as she had always been curious as to what the Doctor had seen on the game station, but now was hardly the time to ask. They had business to get to, and the past wasn't it.

"It's a…" She paused, then started again. "It's a TARDIS thing."

Well. That was a really simple way to put it. Shakespeare looked even more thoughtful and confused, and Martha, though still quite clearly dying to know the whole truth, appeared mollified for now.

"But it doesn't matter right now," Rose pressed urgently, getting back to the matter at hand. "We need to –"

She broke off with a gasp, doubling over. The stab of pain vanished in almost the same instant it had appeared, but she fell to her knees with sudden exhaustion. She heard Martha cry out, but couldn't move, couldn't breathe, couldn't tell her that she was all right, just tired, so…_tired_…

**ΘΣ**

When Rose opened her eyes again, the first thing she was aware of was the ridiculously uncomfortable cot she was laying on and Shakespeare's room back at _The Elephant._ Martha and Shakespeare were arguing quietly in one corner of the room. When Rose stirred, they fell silent and parted unhappily. Martha went to stand beside Rose and Shakespeare turned away to wash his face in the water basin.

"Are you all right?" asked Martha.

Rose sat up carefully. Her head pounded fiercely with every move she made, but she hid her pain behind a smile. "I'm fine," she assured Martha. "What happened?"

"We were hoping you could tell us," said Shakespeare from across the room, voice muffled behind the linen cloth he held to his face to dry it. His eyes were narrowed rather suspiciously, Rose noted.

"You just collapsed," said Martha, a crease of worry appearing between her brows. "What was that all about?"

Rose shook her head to try and clear it – her head only throbbed worse, her brain rattling against the inside of her skull. She sighed. "It doesn't matter." At Martha's incredulous look, she amended quickly, "Right now. It doesn't matter right now. I'll tell you later." Her eyes flickered to Shakespeare, who glared.

"You called it a 'Carrionite'," he said. "I've never heard of that before. What is it?"

Rose frowned, remembering what she'd seen as Bad Wolf. "A Carrionite is a…a witch, sort of. We use numbers and things for science, right? Well, the Carrionites use words instead."

"But what are they?" Shakespeare persisted. "They don't seem human to me, not like any human I've ever seen."

"They're not," replied Rose simply. "They're from another world, another galaxy. A fourteen-planet star system, in fact, which is huge factor in the power of their words – actually –"

She swung her legs off the bed and stood, ignoring Martha's protests.

"The Globe has fourteen sides," said Martha in realization before Rose could continue.

Rose nodded. "Exactly."

"But what do they want?" Martha asked.

Rose stared fixedly at knot in the wood of the wall across from her, seeing a dozen lifetimes of things she wished she hadn't seen. When she spoke, she was barely aware of her own words. "They want…a new empire. They were banished, see, by something called the Eternals into the Howling, the Void." Her own ears rang with it, rang with the _howling_, with the nothingness, with a forgotten rush of wind that had taken everything she had ever cared about from her. She swallowed. "They want revenge and they need a new civilization for that. On Earth, 'cos it's convenient, I s'pose. A new bloody world of fear an' witchcraft."

"But how?"

Rose glanced at Martha, then turned to Shakespeare, who froze. "I'm lookin' at the man with all the words."

"Me? But I've done nothing!"

"Hold on, though," said Martha. "What were you doin' last night, when that Carrionite was in the room?"

"Finishing the play," exhorted Shakespeare as though defending himself from an accusation.

Rose frowned thoughtfully. "What happens at the end?" She asked him.

Shakespeare looked surprised. "The boys get the girls, they have a bit of a dance, it's all as funny and thought-provoking as usual."

He looked down for a moment, remembering, then looked up and met the Rose's eyes.

"Except those last few lines. Funny thing is…I don't actually remember writing them."

"That's it, then, isn't it?" Rose declared suddenly. Shakespeare and Martha turned to look at her in varying degrees of puzzlement. But she didn't notice; she was remembering. "Think about it. You're _famous_ for your words, Mr. Shakespeare; people _listen_ to you. If the Globe Theatre was made by the Carrionites, then doesn't it stand to reason that they want something with you, like…some type of voodoo or something?"

"What d'you mean?" Martha ventured.

Rose looked right at Shakespeare. "They used you. It was jus' like I thought, Martha – _Loves Labours Won_! There's a spell in it, they gave it to Shakespeare; it's a weapon!"

"We've got to stop it," Martha breathed. "We can't let them say the spell."

Rose nodded. "You an' Shakespeare do that – stop that play!"

"What about you?" said Martha, concerned. "What are you gonna do?"

"I'm gonna pay the witches a little visit," said Rose, like it was obvious. Martha gave her a somewhat hurt look.

"Can't I come with you?"

Rose nearly groaned. Martha's life had already been threatened once today; she wasn't going to place her right in the midst of the enemy if she could help it.

"Martha, if you're ever gonna trust me, do it now, all right?"

Martha shook her head, confused. "But why –"

"Martha," Rose interrupted. "Jus' listen to me. You don't know what you're doing, an' I do." Well, that was a lie, and she paid for it with Martha's injured glare.

"You don't even know where All Hallow's Street _is_!" Martha protested.

Shakespeare, however, had already taken care of that problem. While Martha and Rose were busy fighting, he had retrieved some maps from a shelf behind his desk and laid them out for all to see.

"It's right here," he said matter-of-factly, pointing imperiously at the map. Martha and Rose drew closer to examine it. Rose studied the path with a critical eye, committing it to memory, then nodded.

"That settles it," she decided. "Help Shakespeare stop the play," she instructed Martha, who stared at her incredulously. She turned to leave the room, jogging to get there faster. "Protect him!" she added over her shoulder as she stepped out onto the landing.

**ΘΣ**

It was night again, dark outside with a bright moon peeking through a thin layer of clouds. A chilly breeze rustled gently through autumn leaves, and Rose was suddenly very glad for her jacket. She slowed to a stroll as she came upon All Hallow's Street, looking around curiously and not really knowing what she was looking for. For that matter, she didn't even know what she would do when she got there. They would probably be prepared for the naming thing, so that was out. Improvising, she decided, was the only option. Good thing she'd had practice at that, then.

Honestly, though, she thought as she peeked around the quiet street corners, she felt like she was in some kind of supernatural horror film. The best thing she could hope for was that this film had a happy ending.

There were so many houses to choose from. Should she just go from door to door and start knocking? Somehow, the thought didn't seem very appealing.

"But which house?" she asked aloud, brows furrowed. At first, there was no answer, as she had obviously expected. There was a muffle of voices in the distance, but otherwise everything was silent.

Then a door to her left opened conspicuously with a grinding creak. She rose an eyebrow. "Right," she muttered to herself. "A _witch_ house."

Oddly enough, that wasn't as amusing as it should have been.

The inside was, Rose decided, every bit what she imagined a witch's house should look like. Half-melted candles, the smell of rotting flesh, a bubbling cauldron, and a cloaked youth standing in the middle of it all. She looked familiar: Rose placed her as the maid who had assisted Dolly Bailey, Lilith.

From the looks of it, "assisted" was a rather loose term in this case. Rose assumed she was one of the Carrionites, but she was not like the one they had encountered in the cell at the "hospital". This witch was beautiful on some superficial level, although her eyes glinted darkly with malcontent.

"Hello," she started bravely, if somewhat lamely. Lilith smiled mirthlessly.

"Death has been waiting for you a long time, Miss Tyler," said Lilith cryptically. Rose flinched, but nothing happened. She did not bother trying to figure out how Lilith knew her name.

"I know what you're doing to the people out there," she declared, feeling proud when her voice refused to waver. "I won't let you do it. I have a ship, I can take you –"

"Miss Tyler," the Carrionite cackled patronisingly. "Do you really think I have any wish to return home when I have everything I want right _here_?" She held out a hand, pointing her finger at Rose like it was a deadly weapon. Rose tensed. "Fascinating," she murmured. "There is no name that will affect you, not even your own."

Rose frowned, thrown off guard. What was she talking about?

Lilith tilted her head to the side curiously.

"But there is someone…" she said, seeing something beyond Rose. "Why would a man hide his title in such despair?"

Rose took a step back, feeling like she had been punched in the gut. Lilith shook herself from her daze.

"But in you," she murmured, her eyes cold and cruel, "Such fire…such…_burning_. It _howls_."

Rose jerked back involuntarily. Lilith looked down at her finger with fixated intrigue. With a stab of fear, Rose remembered what one touch had done to poor Peter Street and had almost done to her.

_Almost_. She felt an unexpected burst of confidence with that thought. Could Bad Wolf protect her? Could she control Bad Wolf enough so this witch's words could not kill her?

"Stop it." Rose ordered. Anger began to seethe within her. She savored the feel of it beneath her skin.

"It's curious," said Lilith, ignoring her entirely. "You are different from the other humans, and you haven't even really noticed, have you? You think you have; the coincidences, the prophecy, the visions, the burning fury. But you have no idea how rabid you are, how terrifying…like a _wolf_."

Rose jerked back again, and realized with a cold feeling of dread that Lilith was controlling her through that inexplicable connection Rose had to the entity of Bad Wolf. Her anger boiled. She did not like being controlled. She reached instinctively for the ball of intense fire she felt burning in the pit of her stomach, but stopped just short of touching it.

"I'm warning you." She uttered with a voice barely more than a whisper. Lilith either did not notice or thought Rose had no power to hurt her.

"But you are lonely, dear Rose. So lonely. All alone, this dark night. Truth overthrown, gone without a fight. Bleeding, lost, without a _doctor_ in sight."

The flames grew to envelop her entire body, suffusing Rose with an inferno of heat. Lilith's triumphant face stuck out in a sea of billowing rage, and Rose stalked toward her glowering darkly.

"You shouldn't have said that," Rose informed her quietly, passionately. "Because that's a name that keeps me fighting. That's a name that has the power to destroy entire worlds. The _Oncoming Storm_. That's what his enemies called him, did you know that?" The heat was heady, and she couldn't think straight. Words without meaning flowed from her mouth, and all she could think of was _him_, and all she could do was stop this _thing_ from infesting the Earth. She didn't give Lilith a chance to get a word in edgewise. "_Leave_ this planet, Carrionite, or you'll regret it."

"Will I?" Lilith seemed amused by the thought. "What can you do to me?"

"Things you've never dreamed of," Rose promised vengefully. At last, Lilith took a tiny step back, apparently disturbed.

"You can't do anything to me," she said with aplomb, but her eyes said differently. She backed away, toward the window. Rose walked after her with an even, predatory pace.

"Watch me." Rose hissed and made a grab for the Carrionite.

At the last second, Lilith jumped up and _flew_ out the window, clipping off a strand of Rose's hair along her way. She pulled a little doll out of her robes and wrapped the hair around it. Rose's momentum took her into the wall, and it took her a moment of steady cursing to regain a sense of balance. When she had, Lilith was smirking at her in the pale moonlight.

"Do you know what you pitiful humans are to us, Miss Tyler?" asked Lilith rhetorically. She waved the doll in the air mockingly. "_Puppets_. Say goodnight!"

She held up her other hand, which, Rose realized with a flash of terror, clutched a needle that glinted smartly in the light of the moon. Before she knew it, the needle had plunged into the doll's chest. Rose backed away from the window in horror, expecting…_something_. But nothing happened. Both Lilith and Rose stared at the doll in confusion.

"What _are_ you?" Lilith breathed fearfully. She whirled around, not waiting for an answer, and disappeared silently into the night.

**ΘΣ**

"I thought I told you to stop the play!" Rose shouted. "Stop the _play_! _Stop_ it! That's what I said, yeah?"

"We tried!" Martha snapped, looking frustrated. A few feet away, Shakespeare sat on a crate, groaning.

"I hit my head," he protested feebly.

"What happened?" Rose asked, lowering her voice a little in sympathy. She was still shaken over her conflict with Lilith the Carrionite.

Martha looked at Shakespeare and shrugged. "I think they used the name-thing on me."

Rose swore.

"Are you all right?"

"Yeah, _fine_," said Martha sarcastically. "Bloomin' perfect. It only feels like my brain wants to come out and eat you."

_Great imagery,_ Rose grimaced.

In the Globe, the screams of the trapped audience grew louder and the distant cackling of the Carrionites could just be heard.

"Cue me," Rose muttered, shaking her head. Today was _not_ her day. Without waiting for Martha or Shakespeare, she ran up the steps to the stage and then froze, staring up at the sky. Dimly, she heard footsteps behind her and knew that her companions had followed.

From somewhere in the audience – they had to crane their necks to see – a jet of bright red energy shot out of what looked to Rose like a crystal ball, which Lilith was holding. The two other Carrionites were laughing joyfully, a sound that raised in volume with the appearance of several black shapes that whirled violently in a black tornado of 'witchcraft'. The reddish cloud Rose had seen from the street on her way in was now infused with crackling lightning and nasty gray smoke.

Rose was at a total loss. She wished for Bad Wolf now, wished for some clue to get her moving, to give her an idea as to what would rid them of these stupid _witches_. More than ever, she wished the Doctor were here.

Desperately, she wracked her brain for all the information she could, trying to remember everything she had seen at Bethlam Hospital. Fourteen, fourteen, fourteen; an alien race from another galaxy; words, words, words, and more words, words of power, words that could take over the world, words written by Shakespeare….

"Shakespeare!" She shouted suddenly over the din of the audience's panic and the cackling of the Carrionites, grabbing his arm. "You can stop this! The world needs you!"

"But what can I do?"

"Reverse it!"

"How am I supposed to do that?"

Both Rose and Martha looked at Shakespeare like he'd just asked why grass was green.

"The Globe has the power, but you've got the words! You're the only one genius enough to save us!"

"But what words?" asked Shakespeare, flustered. "I have none ready!"

Rose rolled her eyes at Martha and was somewhat disappointed when she got a frightened, furtive look in return.

"But you're William Shakespeare!"

"But these Carrionite creatures, they need such…_precision_!"

Rose stepped closer to him so she could talk without having to holler herself hoarse.

"Will," she resorted to using his first name, "you don't _need_ to have words ready, do you? That's what you do; you _write_, you don't think about it, you jus' _do it_. Trust your instincts – let yourself pick the words, your perfect, _brilliant_ words, and worry about the rest later, yeah?"

She took a step back, leaving him, quite literally, at center stage.

Shakespeare hesitated, then held himself straighter and _spoke_.

"Close up this din of hateful dire decay! Composition of your wits is blocked – you thieved my brains, considered me your toy! My darling Rose tells me I am not!"

Rose and Martha smiled at each other.

"Foul Carrionite spectres, cease your show, between the points –" he paused, silently asking Rose for counsel.

Thankfully, Bad Wolf had provided this much.

"761390!" she shouted to Shakespeare, who nodded thankfully.

"761390!" he repeated, turning back to the Carrionites. "Banish life, and take its cause! I say to thee –" He stopped again, at a loss, looking to the time travellers for advice.

"Erm…" Rose worked her mouth for a moment, trying to think of something intelligent to say.

"_Expelliarmus_!" Martha shouted out of the blue. Rose laughed gleefully.

"_Expelliarmus_!" She agreed over noise.

"_Expelliarmus_!" Shakespeare bellowed.

The Carrionites screamed as a black void of nothingness opened in the crystal ball Lilith still held in her hands. Behind Martha, the stage door opened, letting in a whirlwind of papers which blasted around them. Rose shielded her face with her hands, praying she wouldn't somehow go through all she had only to die of a thousand papercuts.

_Loves Labours Won_, Rose thought. _The lost play. There it goes. Lost. Forever._

Yet in this chaos, all she could see was a white wall. All she could hear was _his_ screaming. All she could think of was her determination to find the Doctor. Martha must have seen something in her expression, because she slipped her hand into Rose's and squeezed gently.

"You will pay!" Lilith screamed as she was sucked into the orb. "And you will _never_ find him, Rose Tyler! You will _never_ see him through the Howling!"

Rose closed her eyes and shut out that horrendous, grating voice_. __"I love you. Goodbye, Doctor. For now, I mean." _Her hope destroyed the creeping despair. _"Rose Tyler – "_

The void sucked in the cloud and the energy and the last of the Carrionites, trapping them forever in a tool of their own making. The roaring wind died around them and a pregnant hush fell over the Globe.

Then someone in the higher audience started to clap and soon the entire auditorium was ringing with the sound. Rose used this distraction to slip away and retrieve the crystal ball, which she slipped carefully into her jacket, deliberately ignoring the screaming faces of the Carrionites within. When she returned, Martha and Shakespeare, along with the two actors who had still been onstage, were bowing theatrically to the adulation.

"They think it's special effects?" said Martha incredulously when Rose slipped between her and one of the actors.

Rose grinned. "Humans are like that," she said cheerfully to Martha as they bowed with Shakespeare to the applauding crowd (a moment to remember, that). "We never believe what's right in front of us."

**ΘΣ**

The next morning found the three of them in the Globe once more. Rose went backstage to look for any remnants of the play, but found herself tinkering with a lot of the props instead. She cheerfully fingered a ruff and put it around her neck just for the heck of it, because she was so giddy now that everything had turned out all right and the future as they knew it wasn't in danger of complete decimation any longer.

She twirled a fake sword, put on trenchcoat and a fedora with a feather in it and pretended to be a detective, and threw a bottle full of beads around the room, entertaining herself with the notion of someone coming in and slipping on them. She felt like a little kid again, honestly. When she spotted an elongated skull, she froze, then shrugged out of the long trenchcoat-like apparel, which she hung over a box full of what looked like tights. Her hand grazed the skull almost reverently, at first. Then she picked it up, admiring the craftsmanship.

It reminded her of the Sycorax. Odd thing was, the memory didn't hurt as she would have expected it to, which was probably the reason why she spent such a long time staring at the plastic skull. The rusty, barbed razors in her skin had finally gone and now all she could feel was a wistful kind of longing

There was a small stack of papers in the room, but no copies of the play. She flipped through the pages idly until a phrase caught her eyes and she caught herself reading the end of the poem in captivation.

_Never believe though in my nature reigned,_

_All frailties that besiege all kinds of blood,_

_That it could so preposterously be stained,_

_To leave for nothing all thy sum of good;_

_For nothing this wide universe I call,_

_Save thou, my rose, in it thou art my all._

When she emerged from the room, she was smiling. She remembered she had the fedora on her head and took it off, dropping it to the ground behind her though she still clutched the skull, still clung to a memory. The ruff was still around her neck as well, and she figured she could go ahead and give it to Shakespeare. He'd look good with it, she decided.

To Shakespeare and Martha, who were sitting on the stage waiting for her, her entrance must have appeared quite comical.

"I like the props back there," she announced. Then she frowned at the skull her hand, realizing she probably looked strange carrying it around. "'cept for this," she added, wrinkling her nose. "Reminds me of the Sycorax."

"Sycorax," repeated Shakespeare. "Nice word. I'll have that off you as well."

"If you want," Rose replied cheerfully, letting the skull fall on top of the hat. "How're you feeling?"

"Head's still aching," Shakespeare answered promptly.

"Here," Rose offered, unhooking the ruff and placing it around Shakespeare's own neck. "Might make it feel better. But," she winked at Martha, "you ought to keep it. Suits you."

"What about the play?" asked Martha.

"Gone," said Rose happily.

"My lost masterpiece," declared Shakespeare mournfully. He looked far more elegant with the "neck brace".

"You could write it up again," Rose suggested, not really meaning it. "But you better be careful what you put in those words!" She nudged him playfully.

"Oh, but I've got new ideas," Shakespeare told them, an indefinable look in his eye that reminded Rose, yet again, of the Doctor. "Perhaps it's time I wrote about fathers and sons. In memory of my boy, my precious Hamnet."

"Hamnet?" Martha repeated, frowning. Shakespeare nodded sadly.

"That's him."

"Ham_net_?" Martha said incredulously.

"What's wrong with that?" asked Shakespeare with an oddly knowing glint in his eye.

"Nothing," said Rose hastily. "We better be going, though," she reached into her jacket and pulled out the orb that contained the Carrionites. She threw it in the air and caught it. "Got a special place for this lot on the TARDIS. 'Sides, it's a long ways to Vezalunia. Gotta get Martha back home safe."

Shakespeare rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "You mean travel on through time and space," he corrected Rose casually.

The time travellers stared at him.

"You what?" said Martha eloquently.

"You're from another world like the Carrionites and Martha is from the future," he nodded slightly in Martha's direction. "It's not hard to work out."

Slowly, Rose's shock morphed into an awed grin. "Well, you're half right," she admitted. "I'm from the future, too, not another world. But that's…amazing. _You're_ amazing."

"I believe we are alike in many ways, Dame Rose," Shakespeare responded graciously. "Martha," he turned to her and took her hand, "Let me say goodbye to you in the universe. A sonnet for my Dark Lady."

Rose and Martha exchanged startled looks, but Shakespeare didn't seem to notice.

"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" Rose gaped; Martha seemed on the verge of fainting from some kind of peculiar ecstasy. "Thou art more lovely, more temperate –"

"Will! Will!" Shouting from the entrance rudely interrupted him. The two actors Rose remembered seeing at the play last night marched up to the stage. "Will, you'll never believe it! She's here! She's turned up!"

"We're the talk of the town!" said the other. "She heard about last night; she wants us to perform it again!"

"Who?" asked Martha.

"Her Majesty," said the actor, as if it was obvious. "She's here!"

As though on cue, the trumpets started, and several guards trounced inside, escorting a very dressed-up woman Rose assumed was the Queen.

"_Rose Tyler_!" she salivated angrily as soon as she set eyes on Rose.

Rose's smile faltered. "What?"

"My sworn enemy!"

"What?" Rose repeated, eyes growing wide. Martha stood, her stance yelling quite clearly that she was ready to run.

"Off with their heads!"

"_What_?"

"Never mind 'what', just run!" Martha shouted, turning on her heel. Snapping out of it, Rose hastily made to follow her.

"Stop her! Stop that pernicious _rebel_!"

Shakespeare laughed.

As they raced through the streets of sixteenth-century London, Martha demanded, "What on Earth did you do to upset _her_?"

"Dunno, haven't met her yet." Rose answered, weaving between a manure pit and a mule. "Something to look forward to, I suppose."

She shoved her key into the lock of the TARDIS, opening the door for Martha and looking back, breathlessly, at their pursuers. She grinned at the guards that had gained on them, but her eyes widened when one of them cocked back an arrow.

Quickly, she scrambled inside and slammed the door closed on a quivering arrow.

Inside the TARDIS, Martha laughed with the sheer thrill of another narrow escape.

**TBC in the original BAW episode, Omega Black!**

_Written by Black Alya Wolf_

_Edited by Furyism_


	5. Omega Black Part I

**Episode Three**

**Omega Black, Part I**

Rose worked around the controls, utterly confused. The TARDIS wasn't cooperating for some reason. Rose wanted to take Martha to New Earth – someplace hopefully exciting for her, someplace at least a little familiar to Rose. But the TARDIS wasn't telling her what to _do_.

_Spacial regulator,_ nudged a thought from the back of her mind, and Rose nearly growled. What the hell was a 'spacial regulator'? According to most of the research she'd done, such a thing shouldn't even exist. Dammit.

_You have to learn eventually,_ the TARDIS replied.

_Not helping!_

The TARDIS replied with an audible noise Rose interpreted as an expression somewhere between consternation and amusement. She translated it as: _Not trying to._

Rose grabbed the small mallet from under the console and beat a completely useless control with it out of spite. The column sparked at her indignantly. Rose glared at it, sucking on a burnt thumb, and let the mallet drop with a quiet bang to the grated floor.

"Something wrong?" Martha asked from the jumpseat looking frankly amused. Rose glared at her too.

"No."

_Very little is different from your last flight. _The TARDIS insisted implacably. _Use the same controls as the last two dozen tries I instructed you to._

Like she could remember all those. And it wasn't just about remembering when to push what button where; she had know how they worked and _why_, dammit. She knew that the TARDIS was only trying to help, in its own way, but as far as teachers went, there was a lot of room for improvement. Honestly, what did the stupid ship think she was, a Time Lord or something?

Deciding that they both needed a time-out before one of them did something irrevocably damaging to one another, Rose sighed and turned her back to the controls. She faced Martha, who was watching her expectantly. At least _some_one could be respectful.

The console flickered in exasperation.

"One trip, I said, yeah?" Martha nodded forlornly, her face falling. Rose smirked. "S'pose we could…stretch it a bit. Still counts as one trip when it's one trip to the past and one trip to the future, right?"

Martha's face lit up excitedly. "Are you serious?"

Rose grinned, nodding. "Even," she added, turning back to the controls in an attempt to understand some of them, "a different _planet_."

"No complaints from me!" Martha declared, laughing.

Rose bit her lip, not quite as certain. What would the Doctor think of Martha? Was she the kind of person he might have brought on board? If he were here, would he have offered to bring her along, just as Rose had? Would there have been any reason to? What would he think about Rose traveling on her own? About taking on 'companions' as he had? The vision she had had of Bad Wolf Bay suggested that he wouldn't mind, but she still had her doubts. She was only human, after all.

Perhaps this was why she had insisted on just the one trip. It would be easier to get rid of Martha when the time came, that way.

That sounded horrible even in her head.

_Set the coordinates first, _then_ the time,_ the TARDIS instructed, interrupting her musings. _You don't want a repeat of Ancient Egypt._

Rose refrained from cringing at the reminder. She closed her eyes, clearing her head of uncertainties for the moment, and tried to remember what she had done when she'd had the TARDIS helping her step-by-step. It was like driving, right? Easy.

There was something about a gravitic anomalizer or something, she thought…but they were in the vortex, and that particular control was meant to get this hunk of junk off a planet without tearing the ship to pieces, if she recalled correctly.

The TARDIS hummed angrily at "hunk of junk", and Rose childishly stuck her tongue out at the console, immediately grateful afterwards that Martha was in a position where she couldn't see.

"So, if you're human, from Earth, in the twenty-first century," started Martha as she stood, "where did you get the TARDIS? Did you build it or something? Are you a super-genius?"

Rose hit another button savagely, only somewhat pleased when the monitor brightened obediently with a series of flashing numbers. Numbers, at least, were understandable. She still couldn't get the hang of the clockwork-like swirls of Gallifreyan writing.

"Hardly," Rose replied. "Someone…gave it to me. More...passed down to me, I guess."

"What, like an inheritance?" Martha was pacing around the console now, watching Rose work. "Is your grandfather an alien or something?"

Rose shook her head shortly, hair falling in front of her face to hide it partially from Martha's view. She turned a bright blue dial and the numbers on the screen changed into other numbers which she squinted at, trying to decipher the tiny text adjacent to the coordinates to see if she was anywhere near where she wanted to be. She kept getting distracted by the occasional circle or gear she couldn't decipher if she tried. Maybe she should be spending her sleepless nights getting the TARDIS to teach her properly instead of searching fruitlessly for answers to parallel universes.

"A friend." Rose said to Martha, remembering that the girl had asked a question. One which Rose was not eager to answer.

Martha looked interested and oblivious to Rose's discomfort. "Really? What kind of alien was she? Did she have…I dunno, tentacles or something?"

She stopped suddenly and turned to face Rose, eyes lit like fireworks. "Can we go to her planet? See what it's like? Visit her?"

"He," Rose corrected blithely, trying to force some false cheer into her voice. Martha couldn't know how upset she still was by the absence of the Doctor. Martha would just pity her and swoon over _poor, poor Rose_ and it would be just that much harder to take her home. "And why would you want to go to his planet? No fun for me; already been there, all the time. Jus' saw him a few days ago, in fact."

"What kind of alien is he, though?" asked Martha, continuing to pace.

Rose hesitated, pretending to read the monitor. _New Earth_, she had finally managed to get it to say, though it really should not say that, because there were at least a dozen planets entitled New Earth at one time or another. The clocks and swirls and gears of Time Lord-ian had been translated very roughly for Rose's understanding (with a few scattered symbols here and there that she _could_ understand), and Rose still didn't get it, even after months of trying.

The TARDIS, rather thankfully, was giving her more than a few nudges. It was embarrassing, though, like being given training wheels and still needing to be pushed out into the street by her mum to get going. Her hand unknowingly brushed across the dial again as she thought, turning it an imperceptible few millimeters away from its destination. The TARDIS beeped a soft warning but Rose did not notice.

"He's a Time Lord." Rose finally answered Matha. Then she braced herself for more questions. _What's a Time Lord? What do they look like? What do they eat? What do they smell like?_ Martha asked none of these.

"Sounds posh," Martha said instead. "I bet his planet's all futuristic an' stuff, huh? Is it like, outer space cities or spires and all that?"

"It's beautiful," Rose conceded distantly, pressing a few buttons to set the time.

And from what she remembered of the Doctor's descriptions of Gallifrey, it really was beautiful. Rose watched Martha for a moment, wistfully thinking how great it would have been to actually _see_ Gallifrey and not just hear about it.

"Great big temples and cathedrals…" Martha continued, turning to face Rose, who hastily looked away and pulled a lever which did not actually do anything. Rose suspected the Doctor had several levers and buttons like that just for moments like these.

"Yeah." Rose was trying not appear too depressed. She actually liked that Martha was asking so many questions. She just wished they were questions about anything _but_ Gallifrey.

"Lots of planets in the sky…"

Rose was abruptly tempted to tell her all about it, to tell her how amazing it was – or had sounded like, from the Doctor's words: the sky the color of burning fire, the grass as crimson as blood and the trees silver and tinkling a sweet melody in the graceful breeze and the shining, colossal snow-capped mountains that went on forever, overlooking it all, as the twin suns blazed down on everything so brightly, so brilliantly, the universe's largest, most perfectly-cut diamond could never begin to compare.

"Absolutely," she murmured, seeing as she stared at her hands a planet out of time and space that she had never seen before but belonged to a man who had.

"Can we go there?"

_No._

Rose tutted, putting on her cheerful mask again. "Nah, what's the point in that? Practically like home, really."

Suddenly, she jumped around the console, startling Martha – she had just remembered an important energy converter that needed to be activated in order to safely take the TARDIS from the time vortex to someplace a little more…solid? No, _corporeal_;that was the word! She had to pump the bicycle pump that sat off to the side a few times to try and stabilize the ship so they wouldn't have such a rough landing (which either would or wouldn't work; it didn't always, so it wasn't really worth bothering with usually, she just wanted something to do with her hands). Then she played with the switches a little more, adjusting the date so it was more accurate to the time she and the Doctor had gone to New Earth, almost…God, was that almost a year ago now? Ah hell, it was all relative anyway. And then another, a failsafe to make sure she didn't accidentally cross her own timestream. That would be bad. Unimaginably bad.

"Year five billion and fifty-three," she narrated to Martha, finally starting the materialization sequence with some confidence that she'd gotten it right with very little help from the TARDIS. "New Earth, fifty-thousand light-years from Old Earth, in New New York."

She grinned at Martha and bounded toward the doors as the rotor in the central column slowed.

"My friend an' I came here a few months back, but we ran into some trouble an' left right away, so we didn't really get to look around. Now we can. Come on!"

She didn't notice the warning signals the TARDIS was giving her until it was too late.

They stepped outside, and the sky fell upon them in endless torrents of warm, wet rain. Martha complained quite verbally, zipping up her jacket as she turned away from the TARDIS. Rose nudged her quickly in the side to get her to be quiet, holding her hands above her head.

They were surrounded.

**ΘΣ ... ****ΘΣ**

Martha gawped at the seven cloaked, burly soldiers who stood in a semicircle around them and the TARDIS, ordinary Earth-looking machine guns cocked and ready. Well, she wasn't worrying about rain anymore. They were standing in what looked like a forest, though in the distance she was sure she could see mountains. The sky overhead was dark, but because of the clouds she couldn't tell if it was nearly dawn or dusk.

"I'm sorry," she heard Rose say placidly, "but I don't believe we've met. I'm Rose Tyler, and this is my companion, Martha Jones."

Martha wondered how could Rose could possibly be so freaking _calm._

One of the soldiers stepped forward, lowering his gun. From the way he held himself, he appeared to be the leader.

"Where is the Doctor?" He asked, utterly confusing Martha. Rose, however, paled.

"How d'you know 'im?" She retorted. Martha saw a nearly imperceptible tremor shake the hands Rose held in the air.

"Where is the Doctor?" The dark-haired soldier repeated, hands tightening around his gun.

"Busy," Rose snapped. "Now, how do you know him?"

The man ignored her, touching the earpiece in his right ear – which, Martha now realized, all the soldiers had. "He's not here, sir," he reported curtly, still touching his ear. There was a moment of silence in which he listened for the reply. "Understood, sir," he replied to whoever was on the other end. "Yes, sir. …There are two women who came with it. …Yes, sir, right away. Darsum out."

"Darsum" lowered his hand and gestured for the others to lower their weapons.

"Who are you?" Rose demanded immediately, letting her hands fall to her sides. Martha followed suit warily. "What's goin' on? What do you want with the Doctor?"

"Your questions will be answered momentarily," said Darsum professionally. "If you will please come with us, Miss…?"

"Tyler," Rose repeated impatiently. "An' I'm not goin' anywhere until you tell me what for."

"The Delta wishes to see you, Miss Tyler," Darsum replied in a way that made it rather clearly sound like Rose didn't have a say in the matter.

"What for?"

He ignored her with a crooked smile. "If you would follow me?"

He turned and began to walk away, boots squelching heavily in the thick mud. Martha made a face behind his back as the other soldiers gathered into formation around them, forming a tight-knit box that frankly made her feel like a trapped animal.

"Who's the Doctor?" Martha asked Rose as quietly as she could manage as they shuffled after Darsum.

"He's that friend I was telling you about," Rose replied out of the corner of her mouth. Martha couldn't see her face, but she sounded worried.

"The Time Lord?"

"Yeah."

"Where are we?"

Rose grimaced, finally turning her head to look at Martha. "I musta botched up the coordinates or something. This isn't New Earth, far as I can tell. I dunno where we are."

"So glad I got you," Martha grumbled. Rose smiled a little and looked forward again. She gave an experimental sniff.

"Nope, can't smell any apple grass," she muttered.

What the hell was apple grass? Before she could ask, Darsum maneuvered them around a tree, and she had to scramble to find purchase on the slippery undergrowth of the wood as she was jostled by the others.

"What's your name?" She asked once she was stable again, trying to make conversation with one of them. She thought she saw Darsum shoot an amused look at her over his shoulder but ignored him.

"Polin." The soldier answered stiffly, shifting the weight of his gun. He appeared to be the skinniest and the youngest of the group, and therefore much less intimidating than the others.

"What do you guys do out here, Polin?"

"Guard the city," he rumbled. Martha frowned.

"An' what city is that?"

Polin looked surprised, his vivid green eyes dancing. "The Woodland City," he said matter-of-factly; "the Delta's home."

"Who's the Delta? What planet are we on?"

Some of the soldiers sniggered.

"It's a fair question," Rose defended. "We're not from around here."

"This is the moon of Omega XVI," Darsum said unexpectedly without turning around, "the largest and most influential civilian planet in the Omega system." He sounded more than a little proud; he was boasting.

"Omega system," Rose murmured quietly, as if filing away the information. They moved around another mammoth tree. This time, Martha noted a strange fragrance wafting from it, something like a cross between scrambled eggs, blueberries, and lavender. "What does the Delta do?"

Darsum shrugged his massive shoulders. "Oversees civilian operations on the moon," he said. "Reports to the Omega of Omega XVI."

"_The_ Omega?" Martha repeated, wrinkling her nose curiously.

"The overseer of the planet," said Polin, looking like he thought Martha was stupid. "Everyone answers to him. He's the lawmaker, the governer, the ruler. He controls everything, including all on this moon. The Delta carries out his orders here. Some call the Omega the sixteenth Annointed."

"So he's a typical tyrant then?" Rose quietly inquired. Martha wanted to push her into the mud. How could she be so rude to people they'd just met? Thankfully, no one answered her, or Martha was sure something bad would happen.

There was silence for several more moments, and still they walked on without a sign of stopping. Martha had no idea where they were going and suspected that Rose didn't either.

The trees provided little shelter from the rain but Martha would not have noticed if it had: she was soaked through. Rose, she noticed, hardly looked better. Her makeup was running and her wet blond hair hung around her in scraggly straw-colored curls; she looked a lot like a drowned rat, a fact in which Martha took a little infuriated glee, for Rose was the one who had gotten them into this mess to start with.

"The Omega is ill," Polin stated out of nowhere. Martha jumped. He was looking at Rose and Martha. "If there's anything you can do to help him, we would all be grateful."

"Maybe it's just his time." Rose suggested grimly, wiping streaming mascara from under her eyes with the back of one hand. It liked bruises under her eyes.

Polin shook his head.

"Many of the other Omegas of our system have fallen ill as well. There's been declared a system-wide emergency. Not often that happens."

"_Can_ you do anything for him?" Asked a redheaded female soldier to Rose's right. "Can you cure him?"

"I don't know," Rose answered honestly. "What's wrong with him?"

"No one knows," responded Darsum, even though the question wasn't met for him. "Our best doctors and scientists can't figure it out."

"That's why the Delta wants the Doctor," Rose realized aloud. "He's the best scientist…" Martha saw her face fall slightly; "…in the universe."

Her desolate look shook Martha to her core. There was something Rose wasn't telling her and it centered around this friend of hers. Martha bit her lip to keep from prying. This was hardly the time or place for personal questions, after all: she remembered Rose aptly pointing out the same thing when they had been in the middle of another crisis in a certain hospital...back on Earth.

The reality of the fact that she was who-knew-how-far from Earth, with some woman she had barely known for more than a couple of days, walking into who-knew-what kind of danger, in some unknown time and place and galaxy with no way and no hope of ever getting back home without said stranger, crashed into her so violently in that moment that she stumbled and nearly knocked a burly, sandy-haired soldier into a tree. He glared at her with menace and she shrank back meekly.

Rose shot her a concerned look, but Martha avoided her gaze. She did not want to look at her and realize just how much she trusted this stranger, didn't want to see how far gone she was if Rose turned out to be a bizarre earthling-napper or murderer or something. She didn't want to see how blindly and faithfully she believed that Rose was not like that at all.

A few minutes later, the rain was slowing to a drizzle and the trees were thinning out. Above the towering canopy, Martha could see small billows of smoke rising into the air. The smoke was slightly discolored: a little more blue than black, a little more pink than blue.

"How can there be a fire in this weather?" Martha wondered aloud.

"Everlasting fire," Rose answered, a far-off look in her eyes. She seemed to be remembering something. "Waterproof. Lasts until the wood or whatever it's burning burns out."

"Handy." Martha said with approval.

"Nasty," Rose snapped back cynically, glaring at the back of Darsum's neck. "Imagine a forest of it. A whole planet."

Martha felt the blood drain from her face, and she trembled just slightly. Not all fun and games, then, she realized. Of course, after their excursion into Elizabethan England, Martha already knew the dangers of traveling time and space, but…an entire planet _burning_? And Rose had seen that? Sweet, beautiful, compassionate Rose had been subjected to a…an everlasting horror? She was reminded of the old saying, "Don't judge a book by its cover." Rose might look younger than Martha, and probably was, but she had clearly seen more. Been through more. _Old eyes_. Martha thought of a planet burning to ash, the fire literally unstoppable, and shuddered.

Rose nodded, apparently satistfied by her reaction.

"Nothing to worry about." Darsum said and laughed, apparently sensing their unease with a nonchalance that set Martha's teeth on edge. "We only use it for cooking. Not compatible with the wood of the forest, anyway. In fact, the Delta forbids anything that might harm the moon or its environment."

"All the same," Martha muttered, eyes flitting over to meet Rose's own. "Don't you have restrictions on that type of thing?"

"Sure," Darsum shrugged carelessly. Martha thought she could hate him a little for that. "Certain flammable materials are banned. Simple solution, I think. We have to do something to cook around here, and it rains constantly."

"What about…stoves, and stuff? Indoor cooking?"

"Indoor cooking?" Polin spoke up beside her, bemused. "Only if we want to kill ourselves."

"What's a stove?" Another soldier added.

Martha shook her head. "Never mind," she muttered. She looked at Rose, whose lips twitched.

How could she ever get used to this? Everlasting fire – she could handle that. Traveling to an unknown moon orbiting a planet in an unknown galaxy and conversing with woodsy humanoids with machine guns and deadly, primitive cooking methods (from her point of view, anyway) – she wasn't so sure about that much.

Martha inhaled deeply. The smell of burning wood and cooking meat greeted her nostrils. She exhaled slowly and then breathed in again, allowing herself to enjoy it and to gaze with some small wonder at the multicolored smoke curling into the sky. The redheaded soldier, noticing this, grinned.

"Lovely, isn't it? That's my favorite sight coming home."

"And smell," Rose agreed, sounding distracted. She was looking ahead of Darsum with interest. Martha followed her line of sight and saw, to her surprise, a stone tower built into the wood of a tree. A sentry was posted up top, a deadly gun peering down at them from above. If not for Rose, she wouldn't have even noticed the guard at all. He blended so well.

"Charlie!" Darsum greeted loudly as they passed by. The man in the fortified treehouse saluted casually and waved them on.

"The Delta is waiting," he told them, chestnut hair dampened by the rain so that it covered his eyes. "He's disappointed, but he wants to meet them," he nodded charmingly to Martha and Rose and winked.

Darsum rolled his eyes and nodded. "I'll keep that in mind. Be prepared to be stared at." He added in an undertone to Rose and Martha as they left Charlie to his tree.

"What for?" asked Martha.

"You're different." He said simply.

"What's the guard for?" Rose asked. "And this, for that matter," she added looking pointedly around at their escort. "Expecting someone?"

Darsum hesitated, then looked over his shoulder at Rose, smoky gray eyes gleaming. "There's been some trouble lately," he conceded reluctantly, "with the citizens. There are rumors of a rebellion."

"Rebellion?" Martha repeated incredulously, startled. "What kind of rebellion?"

Darsum shrugged and looked forward again as they came to a massive brick-and-wood wall. "Like I said: rumors."

"But what about this…escort?" Rose persisted as they turned to follow along the wall toward an opening some few hundred yards away surrounded by heavily-armed guards and fortified with colossal turrets.

"Aside from our initial thought that you were merely radical rebels, this is not the first time we have had a visit from a blue box." Said Darsum ruefully. Rose and Martha waited, but he offered no more information.

"You mean the Doctor was here?" Rose ventured.

"Perhaps."

"Why would he come here? And why are you so reluctant to tell me?" Her voice softened. "You can tell me."

"That's classified to outsiders until such time as the Delta decides otherwise," said one of the soldiers behind Martha, crushing her hope. She'd thought she had glimpsed, for half a second, a look of temptation on Polin face next to her.

"I'm not your everyday outsider," Rose said dryly. Martha was rather inclined to agree. "What did he do to deserve this, then?" She asked, looking pointedly at the gun the redhead wielded. Darsum glanced over his shoulder, frowning.

"It's classified." His voice was gruff, as though he couldn't understand why Rose would continue to ask after she had all but been told to shut up.

"Do I look like I care?"

Martha could not believe the audacity of the woman.

Darsum merely shook his head. "He is not welcome here any longer."

"But you need him," Martha accused. "How's that work?"

"As you have said," Darsum said to Rose with a smirk, "he is the best scientist in the universe. The best doctor around. The only one who can find a cure for the Omega, even if he is a fucking bastard."

Martha burned with questions, but Rose fell completely silent, trembling with what Martha could only assume was anger. She was speechless from anger, in fact, and her face was a mask of outrage. Martha put a hand on her shoulder, feeling the tension and flaming heat like a hot metal furnace ready to explode, and dropped her hand quickly. Rose seemed to calm somewhat after that, but she continued to fume in silence as they walked on. Martha could swear she saw Rose's beautiful brown eyes flicker gold.

As they approached the city, Martha noticed that they were indeed being stared at quite a bit, though she couldn't tell if that was because she and Rose were not from this planet – moon, whatever – or if it was their theatrical company which garnered their attention. The residents were dressed modernly considering they lived in a forest the way they did, although Martha wasn't entirely sure what consitituted as "modern" on a habitable moon. Most of the buildings were sculpted from stone or marble, though she did notice a few smaller wooden structures that looked like they were used for storage.

The city was _huge_. Great stone walls surrounded it and the streets were organized haphazardly, as if no one had any need to use any more advanced methods of transportation than walking. The center, towards which their motley group marched, was milling with what had to be hundreds of people who seemed completely undeterred by the bad weather. Vendors in the city square bellowed prices and ads and special deals at the top of their lungs and bartered playfully with customers. Smells – the smell of eggs, blueberries, and lavender that she was beginning to associate with the forest, and the smell of cooking foods and sweets and sweat and an earthy just-rained-here smell – swirled around them like the smoke from the everlasting fire. She felt like they were intruding on a festival or something, only they weren't intruding, they were just different; an intriguing addition to this already intriguing moon.

Animals – foreign animals, she realized, ones that looked like complete hybrids of cattle from Earth and others that looked so alien (like a blue, furry fuzzball that leapt around energetically and shot orange appendages out at random passersby to try and trip them up) Martha had to gape at them for several moments until something someone said or did shook her from her daze. Beside her, Rose appeared to have cooled her anger completely, grinning so widely Martha thought her cheeks may begin to crack and bleed from the strain of holding it.

It was then that Martha finally realized that _this_ was what Rose lived for, _this_ was why she traveled across time and space. Helping people was just a side thing – it was the sights and the experiences and _novelty_ of it all that made everything so exciting. It wasn't supposed to be predictable: getting the coordinates wrong was probably something that happened everyday, something else that added to the thrill of the great adventure. She couldn't resent Rose for that.

"Posh."

Martha heard Rose's comment and stopped looking around and behind her long enough to look _up_. Her jaw fell.

She had seen pictures of giant, elegant castles. She had imagined as a child various castles of fairy tales and magic and wonder. She oft had wondered as an adult what it might be like to visit or live in a castle, or maybe to see if numerous rumors of ghosts and such in the oldest castles were true. What she had never dared to dream, however, was the sheer _presence_ of a _real_ castle, of something so grand and so _big_ her eyes could barely comprehend it. And they were at least half a mile away still!

"I wonder how the Omega lives, then," said Rose cheerfully, like this was just any other day and she had seen bigger and better things than an illustrious castle of monstrous proportions. She probably had, at that. "If the _Delta_ gets this treatment…"

"Third only to the kingdom of Omega XVI and the planet kingdom of the Alpha," Darsum proclaimed proudly.

"Alpha?" Rose sounded bemused. "Original lot, aren't they?" she added in an undertone to Martha, who snorted. She rose her voice. "Who's that, then?"

"The highest ruler of the galaxy," Polin answered before Darsum could. Maybe it was her imagination, but Martha thought he sounded slightly bitter. "All the Omegas of each of the planets report to him."

"Sounds…organized," said Martha dubiously. The soldiers around them exchanged looks. Martha got the feeling that there was more to this place than a few rulers with a mysterious flu and a resentment towards an old friend of Rose's.

When they finally climbed the steps leading to the enormous double doors of the castle – Martha craned her neck and _still_ couldn't tell if its height ended before exiting the atmosphere – Darsum muttered something into his earpiece. With a great creaking sound that set Martha's teeth on edge, the doors opened to reveal an open courtyard surrounding another extravagant stone building.

As they trooped through the archway, Martha had to fight to keep her jaw from dropping again. It was _beautiful_: flowers of every color, bright green grass, gigantic marble statues of people and animals and modern art, _real_ people and animals; animals similar to the ones they had seen outside, people dressed in more fancy and less practical clothing than the vendors and citizens roaming the city square – there were even merchant stalls selling expensive jewelry and richly colored fabrics.

"Is every planet like this?" She asked Rose in a low voice. Rose shook her head, her eyes wide. And Darsum had said something about a _planet_ kingdom…was there an entire _planet_ dedicated to looking like this? "They don't even care about the weather," she said as the clouds above opened up on them again. In fact, the nobles seemed to rejoice in it.

"The rain brings life," said Darsum, sounding offended. "Why should they not enjoy it?"

Before Martha could point out how gloomy and messy and generally unwelcome rain usually was, Darsum spoke into his earpiece again and the doors to the stone building opened with another loud creak.

"Creepy," Martha muttered.

Rose, however, had narrowed her eyes at the hinges in the doors, studying them.

"Automated," she corrected before the doors had opened all the way, pointing.

What Martha had mistaken for creaking was actually the loud whirring of some kind of machine _within_ the door. Following the path of Rose's finger, Martha could see through the hinges metal bits and pieces that flashed in the light as they moved erratically. Apparently, these people weren't nearly as "primitive" in their technology as they seemed.

Martha decided it would be easier to leave all such opinions to Rose from then on.

After the amazing scenery outside, Martha expected to be blinded by the sheer grandeur of the inside. She was wrong. The entrance hall was nothing spectacular at all: there was a massive stone staircase directly in front of them, and the floor was adorned with a plush, scarlet rug over plain gray flagstones. A few worn tapestries hung limply from the cold, damp walls, and a few torches lining those walls lit the room bleakly.

"Lots of advertising, then." Martha finally commented when their escort took a pause.

"There's no reason to waste time on a room in which no one stays for long," said Darsum wryly without turning around.

Martha lost count of the corridors they traveled and the staircases they climbed. The hallways, she found, were just as boring as the entrance hall, and the heavy wooden doors lining them were tightly shut and barren. In the end, every hall ran together in her mind, until she couldn't possibly hope to distinguish one from the other to save her life. She hoped she wouldn't have to.

By the time they stopped outside a door that looked quite like every other in this place, Martha's legs and throat were burning mercilessly, sweat drenched her back and palms, and she was feeling rather short-tempered. Rose barely appeared bothered at all, though her hair was a little frazzled since it had dried from the rain. Martha's own hair didn't bear thinking about. She growled under her breath in irritation.

Darsum suddenly barked orders for the soldiers to get in formation around the door, which left her feeling an illusion of absolute freedom as she finally took a breath of air that wasn't stale from the invasion of her personal space.

Darsum rapped on the door and opened it when a voice beckoned from inside. He gestured for Rose and Martha to enter, and when they had, he slammed the door closed behind them. Martha jumped at the sound.

It was an office. Or a study. There were floor-to-ceiling bookshelves crammed with scrolls and texts lining the room, all apart from the farthest wall, which stood bare but for a massive map and a large window. Various colored globes were scattered around the room, each apparently representing a different planet…or moon, she thought, still trying to wrap her head around that idea – it hadn't been that long ago that she'd been walking and talking on her own moon, after all.

What looked like a big stone bowl of fire burned above their heads hanging on a chain from the ceiling, providing light. Smoke escaped through a tine hole above it. Two cushy chairs stood in front of a large ebony desk piled high with stacks of papers. A small device rested on one corner of the desk; it looked like a thin metal box with a long slit cut into the top of it. A man was sitting in an ornate chair behind the desk, studying the transparent screen that was projected from the device, a contradiction to the medieval-ness of everything else. As soon as Darsum closed the door, the screen flickered away and the man blinked at Martha and Rose as though he couldn't imagine what they could be there for. Then he came to his senses and stood, moving around the desk to stand a few feet before them.

The Delta had long, silver hair braided all the way down to his waist and matching eyes that observed coldly as Martha fidgeted and Rose tried not to. He was taller than either of them, at least six feet, and swathed in so much jewelry and fine clothing Martha suspected that he was skinny as a rail and not nearly as big and buff as he seemed.

Finally, the Delta bowed slightly, first to Martha, then to Rose, and held out his hand.

"Delta Garland." He said curtly, introducing himself.

"Rose Tyler." Rose replied in kind, returning his earlier bow and offering her hand as well. Garland took it and, instead of shaking, turned it over and kissed her knuckles. Rose narrowed her eyes at the brown-nosing technique but still blushed a little.

"And your servant?"

Martha's face tightened in anger.

"Martha's not my servant!" Rose protested indignantly, almost at the same time as Martha said, "I don't work for her!"

Garland dropped Rose's hand, his lips twitching. He bowed again to Martha. "My apologies, Lady Martha."

It didn't matter. Her opinion of the man was already low.

"Please," he gestured behind him, his voice oily smooth, "have a seat."

They didn't move. Garland's amiable smile vanished. He spun on his heel and returned to the seat behind his desk, sitting with a pointedly graceful flourish.

"How do you know the Doctor?" Rose asked immediately. The Delta's eyes grew, if possible, even colder.

"How do you, Miss Tyler?" He retorted snidely.

"I asked first," said Rose, lifting her chin boldly. Garland chuckled.

"You are hardly in any position to be asking questions, I should think."

"You need me," Rose fired back. "I won't help you unless you answer me."

"But you have no choice but to help me," the Delta replied. His voice was still irritatingly cheerful, as if they were merely talking about the weather and not their imprisonment.

"Then let Martha go," Rose demanded. Martha looked up in surprise. "It's my help you want, not hers."

"Hang on," Martha protested. "I'm –"

"Martha," Rose shot her a pleading look. In it, Martha could see desperation. She remembered her comment about a planet dying from everlasting fire. Rose was trying to protect her. But from what? Yeah, they'd been arrested, but all they really wanted was their help. Why shouldn't they just give it to them?

"The Doctor is no friend of the Omega System," said Garland casually. "He has no bearing on our current situation."

Ah. Was that why?

"But you thought we were him," Rose persisted. Martha wished she wouldn't. "An' we're not, are we? So let Martha go, and tell me what's going on."

"I'm afraid I can't do that. Let her go, that is. You see, I believe the Doctor is still in that blue box of his, hiding. The more hostages I have, the better."

What was so damn important about that stupid "Doctor"?

"He's. _Not_. Here." Rose reiterated through clenched teeth.

"Liar!" Garland boomed, standing. His expression was one of fury. Martha flinched.

Rose just shook her head completely undeterred. "He's not here," she repeated. "He's not…he's not even in this _universe_ anymore." Her eyes filled with tears that didn't fall. Martha stepped toward her in alarm. What was she talking about? Not in this _universe_?

Garland appeared taken aback by Rose's calm sincerity.

"What are you talking about? _Where is he_?"

Rose shook her head, tears unshed glimmering like fire in her eyes. "He's gone."

The Delta glared at her, but seemed to take her heartfelt words as truth. It was hard not to, Martha thought sadly. She would definitely have to have a talk with the woman later.

"Then who are you? His _companion_?" He sneered, his cold silvery eyes cruel and unforgiving. Whoever the Doctor was, he must have done something seriously horrible to this man. Martha remembered that 'companion' was the word Rose had used to describe Martha to Shakespeare.

"I am." Rose seemed to take up a new sense of pride in those words, as if they somehow gave her the strength she needed to keep talking. "And he taught me everything. So if I were you, I'd do as I say."

The threat sounded pretty darn genuine, but Martha had to wonder if it was. What, exactly, did 'everything' imply? From the way Garland paled, Martha assumed it couldn't be good for him.

"Help us," he pleaded softly. Martha blinked at the sudden transformation. PMS or what? "Save our Omega…please. We need him."

Rose's face predictably softened. "What happened to him?"

"No one knows." The middle-aged Delta's voice sounded agonized. "He was young and healthy up until just a few days ago. Now he is dying. All of the Omegas are."

"All of them?" Martha gasped. How many were there? She had gotten the impression that there were only a few who were sick.

The Delta nodded sadly. He seemed to fold in on himself, collapsing into the seat behind him and burying his face in his hands.

"We've done everything. Some say the rebels have poisoned them. Others say one poisoned himself _and_ the others. Scientists say they are simply ill, that the time of the Omegas has long passed. No one knows for sure, and our doctors have no cure."

"Rebels?" Martha inquired. Darsum had mentioned them a few times, but she had to wonder what, exactly, they were rebelling against. Frankly, if it was a rebellion against this stupid government, she would join their side any day. While the people outside had certainly looked happy, and she was glad of that, something about this whole thing didn't sit right with her. It looked nice, and there was no reason not think otherwise, but all the same it made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end, as cliché as that seemed. Seeing as her brain was of little use her, what else could she trust but her instincts?

Delta Garland nodded in response to her inquiry, though his face was still hidden from their view. "The revolutionaries. Small uprisings in the past years, ever since the Doctor came here five years ago, have occurred periodically in protest to the traditions of our people." He looked up. His eyes were sad, now. "They are savage creatures. Our traditions have protected us from war for the last millenia. Now they wish to bathe our solar system in the blood of our people." He shuddered in and her buried his face in his hands again.

Had the Doctor really caused that, these uprisings? Was the revolution really as bad the Delta said it was? Was the Doctor the kind of person to encourage that? One look at Rose told her it was entirely possible. She hung her head, realizing she that her thoughts made her a hypocrite. Moments ago, she was just thinking that a rebellion was exactly what this place probably needed. But if the people were happy as they were, there was nothing to say that anything had to change, was there?

Rose bit her lip and ventured closer to the Delta, wandering around the desk until she was standing next Garland's shuddering form. She knelt down beside him and put a hand on his arm. He looked up, startled. Rose glanced at Martha once, their distrust of the man equal and open. In that single glance Martha could see that Rose did in fact agree with the rebellion simply for the fact that the Doctor started it – if he had. Nevertheless, there was no reason for unnecessary deaths. Hell, there was no reason for any deaths at all. If the Omegas' illnesses were part of a rebel plot, that plot still had to be stopped. Even Martha, who was new to time travelling and galaxy hopping, understood that. So she nodded, silently agreeing with Rose and urging her to continue at the same time and praying to God they weren't making a terrible mistake.

"We'll help you," Rose promised. The triumphant smile on the Delta's face told Martha that they probably would regret this later. It felt like no choice they could have made would have been right.

**ΘΣ ... ****ΘΣ**

Darsum was alone when they finally left the Delta's office. He was leaning against the wall across the hall, but straightened to attention as soon as the door opened and Martha and Rose exited.

"We are preparing a shuttle for your departure. It'll be ready by morning."

"Great!" Rose replied with too much enthusiasm. Darsum ignored this.

"In the meantime, you are expected for supper."

"Supper?" Martha repeated suspiciously.

Darsum smiled grimly. "It's just a meal. Unless you would rather do without…?"

Martha's stomach growled before she could say she wasn't hungry. Rose giggled quietly – she didn't seem eager to do much more than glare at Darsum after what he'd said – and Martha scowled at her.

"Follow me, if you would."

It seemed to take much less time to climb back down to the entrance hall than it had to climb up to the Delta's office. From there, they walked across to another large set of double doors and into an ornately-decorated dining room. Martha felt too hungry and too exhausted to care what it looked like.

Rich, warm smells greeted her nostrils as soon as the doors opened. There was one long table running the length of the room, crowded with nobles and peasants and soldiers alike. There had to be at least a hundred people feasting in there. Martha's eyes alighted eagerly on the food. A few heads turned as she and Rose sat with Darsum – Rose keeing Martha between them – next to the redheaded soldier and Polin.

"Can we really – ?" Martha gestured wordlessly at the food. Darsum smirked and nodded. Martha quickly grabbed a fresh, steaming roll of bread and bit into it, ladling stew into a bowl with her other hand. She suppressed a moan of satisfaction. Rose watched her in amusement, then reached for her own food at a more sedate pace.

"What's your name?" Rose asked the redhead between bites.

"Shani." The soldier said quietly.

"Have you always been an escort for unwary travelers?"

Shani smiled, sipping something from her goblet. Martha looked at a steaming jug of what appeared to be cider and filled an empty goblet so she could try it herself. The drink, spiked with just a bit of what tasted like rum, burned a welcome, fiery path down to the pit of her stomach, where it settled and burned comfortably.

"No," Shani answered Rose. "My parents are scholars who work for the Delta here in the castle. I was studying to join them, but then…" she shrugged and grinned a toothy grin. "School was boring."

"So you joined the military?" said Martha dubiously after swallowing a mouthful of delicious, buttery bread. The stew had red things that tasted like potatoes and had meat in it that resembled roast but was too soft and not stringy enough, and the bread tasted amazing with it. Martha thought about asking where the kitchens were so she could compliment the cooks.

"Military?" Shani frowned. She shook her head. "No, it's not like that here. Hasn't been for decades. We're the Enforcers. We take care of the criminals around here, help keep the peace."

"Do you like it, though?" Rose asked, resting her spoon against the side of her bowl. That was something else Martha was grateful for – recognizable silverware. Eating would otherwise be a nightmare, she thought.

Shani shrugged. "Someone's got to do it," she said. "It's the closest thing to an adventure I can get."

"Adventure?" Martha inquired. "Like fairy tale, dragon-type adventure?" Shani blushed in the torchlight at her teasing.

The long window on the other side of the room was darkening; it was nearly night.

"I don't know," she said. "Just something more than…" She gestured vaguely around her at the table of raucous eaters. Darsum snorted.

"Don't listen to her. Shani's a dreamer. Don't know what's good for 'er."

"Says who?" said Marth indignantly, looking past Rose at him. "A dream can't come true if you don't even want to dream it."

"Wisely said," Darsum conceded as though he didn't really believe it. "Waste of time, if you ask me. You can't have what you never get."

"Until you get it," Rose interjected quietly. Martha looked at her, but Rose was determinedly concentrating on her food.

Darsum laughed then, a full belly laugh that shook their portion of the table and startled poor Polin beside him, who spilled stew all over his own lap and cursed up a storm in pain.

"But anything you can get you can lose." He said, chortling.

Martha saw, perhaps only because she was looking very, very hard for it, a flash of agony cross Rose's face. She barely blinked and it was long gone, but Rose's knuckles were white where she clutched at her spoon. Her roll had flattened in her hand and lay as a puddle of dough on the table.

"How would you know?" Rose sounded bitter. "Lose something recently?"

"Not recently, no," said Darsum easily. "But I was once the advisor for the Omega of Omega XVI himself, Omega Black."

"What happened?" Martha asked him.

"Darsum got the Sickness," said Polin, speaking up for the first time since their trek through the forest.

"Yes, thank you," Darsum snapped, annoyed.

"What kind of sickness?" Martha pressed, determined to find some common symptom to a disease on Earth.

"The same one we think all the Omegas have," said Polin. "The Death Sickness."

Yeah. That was helpful.

"I think that's quite –"

"But what are the symptoms?" Martha interrupted Darsum. "What causes it?"

"Victims suffer at the bones," said Shani quietly. Darsum rolled his eyes. "The Sickness dissolves them like acid. It boils the blood, blisters the skin. No one knows how it starts, but it's not contagious. There are few survivors."

"And I'm one of them," said Darsum gruffly. "End of story."

"What does that have to do with bein' an advisor, though?" Martha inquired, feeling lost. She had never heard of such a disease before. "If you survived, isn't that good?"

Darsum snorted loudly. And rudely.

"Nothin' to do with surviving," he barked. "It's what happens after. I grew immune to the Sickness, so I spent all my spare time over the course of the next three years coming up with a vaccine. It worked, too. The scientific Bureau of Advancement accepted my achievement in the work of medical studies, but they didn't give me credit for it. I was bumped down to Captain of the Royal Guard for doing something outside of my 'job criteria'." His bitterness was almost tangible. "I haven't trusted the Bureau with so much as a pile of thornton manure ever since."

"That's horrible!" Martha gasped.

"How could they do that?" Rose exclaimed indignantly. Her anger with him had been forgotten for the moment.

"What about the cure?" Martha asked. "How come's you need us if you've already got it?"

"The cure is strictly a vaccine, and it's for the Sickness, anyway." Darsum answered, sounding weary. There was a noticeable slump to his broad shoulders. "The Bureau's best scientists came to me for help as soon as they learned the nature of the Omega's illness, but there is nothing I can do. The Omegas show all the same symptoms, but despite rumors," he glared at Polin pointedly, "it is _not_ the same Sickness."

"What do you mean?" Asked Shani, intrigued. She set down her spoon with a clatter, watching the old soldier avidly. Apparently, this was something new to her.

Martha recognized, as Darsum hastened to explain, that this was a man who had a passion and rarely acted on it. Despite the gravity of the situation he was clearly faced with, his eyes lit up like stars.

"When viral cells from the Sickness are exposed to certain bacterial elements, there's a chain of reactions that causes a breakdown in bone marrow and red blood cells. I've only seen a sample of the Omega's blood once, but I can say for certain that there were no virals exposed to him. Not only that, but the symptoms are progressing at an increasingly faster rate. Sickness victims can last up to five years before dying. At this rate, every Omega in the system will be dead by the day after tomorrow."

Rose looked as alarmed as Martha felt.

"'The day after tomorrow'?" Rose repeated incredulously. She jumped up, letting her own spoon fall to the table with a dull _ping_. "What the hell we waiting for, then? Why wait until morning, if he's dying right now, while we could be stopping it?"

Darsum tried to tug on Rose's arm to get her to sit back down, but Rose was having none of it, shrugging off his hand.

"The shuttle won't be ready until then." He attempted to placate her.

"Then let me get back to the TARDIS!" She insisted, pulling away. Martha stood, following her. "I can get my ship to go anywhere. Just give me the coordinates and I'll be there."

Darsum shook his head. He motioned for Shani and Polin to stand, then got up as well. His graying hair flopped into his face as he looked at them sternly.

"I'm afraid I can't let you do that," he declared stonily.

"What? But you've got to!" Martha shouted. Almost every occupant of the dining hall was staring at them now, but she couldn't bring herself to care. "We're wasting time, sittin' here while people are _dying_!"

"Every second we spend here is another second closer to your Omega's death," said Rose softly. "You want to be responsible for that?"

Darsum sighed almost regretfully. "I'm sorry, ladies," he said. It was clear he wasn't sorry at all. "But rules are rules. You are not permitted to return to your ship at any time."

Martha looked at Rose. Rose's eyes twitched downward for a second, and Martha followed them to see her fingers counting off from three, at just the right angle so that Martha could see but the royal guards could not. She turned quickly back to Darsum before he noticed.

Rose and Darsum appeared to be having a staring contest, glaring fiercely at one another. Polin and Shani looked torn as they each rested one hand against the weapons strapped to their hips.

Two fingers up. Darsum's brow twitched. Martha's eyes darted between each person, waiting with held breath along with all their wide-eyed and rubbernecked spectators for all hell to break loose. One. Something like fear flashed briefly in Darsum's eyes as he continued to stare at the young blonde who was at least a foot shorter than him.

"I've never been one for rules." Rose remarked with a saucy wink.

Her third finger went down, her hand clenching into a tight fist, and they both sprang into action simultaneously, making a break for the door, which luckily had not been closed after their entrance.

A few sprints away from Darsum had Martha looking back over her shoulder. The Captain was grinning cheerfully. He made a motion with his hand, and Shani and Polin shot her an apologetic look as they drew their weapons. These weren't the terrifying submachine guns Martha had seen them carrying earlier, but nevertheless she didn't want to be on the receiving end of whatever deigned to come out of those barrels.

"Look out!" She called to Rose, taking a running leap and grabbing the woman around the waist. They both fell to the stone floor hard. Two orange balls of sizzling energy flew over their heads.

"Thanks for that." Rose said, panting.

Martha scrambled to her feet, pulling Rose up with her. No sooner had they regained their footing than Rose shoved Martha away from another blast. Martha stumbled and almost fell over again, then Rose grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the door. More energy balls crackled right past Martha's ear. She could feel the dreadful heat of it, and it spurned her on, adrenaline pumping, feet slapping against stone. She dared to look over her shoulder again and saw Darsum pulling out his own weapon.

Rose seemed to sense without Martha saying a word that they needed to duck, and she did so, a mere five feet from the door, yanking Martha down with her. Martha had no time to marvel at Rose's spidey-sense for they were taking off again immediately, snaking around the door and running out into the entrance hall beyond.

They stopped, though they could hear footsteps pounding behind them. What should they do now? The entrance hall was too wide and too open to risk crossing; the doors leading outside were too far away, and they didn't know how to open them anyway, as there were no distinguishable handles on the things.

"Hide," Rose whispered. Martha readily agreed, and they leaped forward like track runners at the meet of their life, dashing up the enormous staircase and out onto a random landing. Martha cursed the monotony of this place, that she couldn't tell one hall from another. They were going to get lost so easily.

The footsteps behind them were getting closer. They did not have much time.

Rose swore colorfully and turned abruptly to a door on the left. It was locked. She swore again and pulled out that screwdriver thing of hers, fingers deftly twisting the settings to the one she needed. She flicked the switch as Martha glanced behind them. The door opened a moment later with a gratifying click. Martha shot an awed, grateful look at the device in Rose's hand before they jumped inside and closed the door as quietly as they could behind them. Another flick of the switch on the screwdriver-thing and the door was locked again. A quick adjustment of the settings and Rose melted the metal around the keyhole so they couldn't be followed.

Martha held her breath, holding her ear to the door.

"I swear I saw them go this way!" A man, Polin, was saying, his voice muffled by the door. There was the sound of agitated shuffling not too far away. They were just in time, it seemed.

"I don't see them!" Darsum hissed angrily. "All the doors are locked down here; they couldn't have gotten in."

Martha was too afraid to breathe a sigh of relief.

"They probably continued up the stairs," Shani suggested.

"I _know_ they went this way!" Polin said again.

"Let's split up. Shani, call the Guard and have them search the palace. Go upstairs. Polin, you're with me. We'll search this floor and then join the others." Darsum was an efficient leader, Martha had to give him that.

"Yes, sir." "Yes, sir."

"Martha," Rose whispered from behind her. Martha turned to her with the intention of telling her to shut up before they were discovered, but she lost her words somewhere between thinking them and turning around. "I think you should look at this."

She already was. Numbly, Martha stared at the scene before her, looked at Rose, and stepped back, pressing her shoulder blades against the wood of the door, too shocked to move, mouth opening in horror.

Rather involuntarily, she screamed.


	6. Omega Black Part II

**Episode Three  
****Omega Black, Part II**

"The Doctor ripped apart our families. He plunged us into the middle of a war we knew nothing about. And every last one of the common men and women he recruited from among the citizens of this system's unsuspecting planets _died_. When the war was finally over, our lands were devastasted. We were among the only survivors and that was only because we renounced all association we had with the Time Lords before the end.

"This was several decades ago. What followed was a stage in our government so fraught with depression, economically and mentally, many believed we would never recover. We did, several months after the war only by reverting back to the old customs; the traditions of our ancestors. Every planet and moon elected an Omega and a Delta, all of whom answered to the Alpha. Such as it is now.

"All we have left is each other. The Doctor and any who claim to be a friend of his are our enemy. We told as such when he returned here five years ago, and he has never bothered us since."

Rose was crying, Martha noticed. Silently, for she seemed incapable of weeping – but her tears trecked steadily down her pale face, crystallized rivers of untold compassion, sympathy, and pain. Martha looked away, studied her hands and her feet, and compulsively stared at anything but the walls and everything but Rose.

Rose knew Martha was uncomfortable and that she didn't quite understand the severity and precarious position of their situation. The balance lay in whatever Rose said next. Inwardly, she trembled with fear and hurt and loss but she wouldn't let it show. Not now. This wasn't the time or the place.

Taking a deep breath, she said softly, consolingly, "I'm sorry. I know it's not enough, but for what it's worth, I _am_ sorry."

If these people truly hated the Doctor – and she understood now why they did – then it would be wise to convince them, somehow, that they were preaching to the choir. She looked through blurry eyes at the room's four walls, which were lined with memorials, head after decomposing head rotting on top of vases full of ashes, each vase inscribed with a name and (presumably) an epitaph.

It was a memorial of the Time War, she realized. Quite possibly the only one in existence, now that she thought about it. The heads were inexplicably well-preserved considering they had been there for years, but they also stank to high heaven. It was no wonder Martha had taken leave of her senses and revealed their position by screaming. Rose assumed some kind of technology was being used to keep the heads sort of…fresh, but could not imagine for the life of her why anyone would want to do that.

"When I first met the Doctor," she began, "I didn't know what to think. He was dangerous, that much was clear. It was as if…death followed him, everywhere he went, like a constant companion." She exhaled slowly, adding to the drama of her lies, baiting them with what they perceived as the pain of retelling a horrible event in her life. What she really felt was the pain of betraying him, even if it was the only thing she really could do, sat down on her knees at gunpoint and surrounded by soldiers. Martha threw her a curious look, but did not interrupt.

"My world was being invaded by Autons at that time, controlled by a Nestene consciousness. The Doctor had forced them into seclusion there during the Time War; their world had been destroyed, just like so many others…. The Nestene consciousness had had nowhere else to go. But they were…trespassin' on his territory, I guess, 'cos he went mad, killed them all. I saw it, an' I tried to stop him, but 'e wouldn't stop, just kept killing and killing until every Auton was dead." Rose swallowed, closing her eyes. Her heart pounded painfully. She imagined the others would think she was upset that her 'innocence' had been torn away on that 'fateful' day, and though that was the way she had envisioned it in her head, she felt more lonely in that moment than she ever had before.

"So then I tricked him. I tricked him into believing that I would help him, by feeding the Nestene consciousness a bottle of anti-plastic. I took the anti-plastic…" she hesitated, breathing deeply as she braced herself for the biggest lie she had ever told: "…an' then I killed 'im. Pushed the Doctor into the consciousness. He couldn't even regenerate: his body was destroyed. I took 'is ship as mine and I've been traveling the universe ever since. I…I've heard about what he'd done…the people he hurt, an'…"

Rose stopped, her voice cracking at the end and trailing away as tears slipped down to her chin. Having not even realized that she had been crying, she hastily used the back of her hand to wipe the tears away. She bit her lip and shook her head silently for effect, looking down at the ground beneath her knees so no one could see the ghost of a smile that was playing triumphantly about her lips.

The guards were silent. Rose watched from beneath her eyelashes, her neck still bent over almost parallel with the floor, as Darsum turned to Martha. She heard his grip on his gun tightening and her breath hitched expectantly in her throat. An unidentifiable tension stretched like taut bowstring between her shoulder blades and atop her shoulders.

"Does she tell the truth?"

Martha avoided Rose's eyes. "I don't know," she answered truthfully. "She never told me how she got the ship, just that it used to belong to the Doctor. I suppose it makes sense that he's dead." She paused. "A Time Lord never abandons his TARDIS after all, right?"

"If you are enemies of the Doctor," he paused, time enough for Rose to glance up and nod once, firmly; "then you are friends of the Omega System. Why then did you claim to be his companion?"

Rose frowned. "When did the Delta tell you this?" She already had an answer prepared, but she could not recall when Darsum and the Delta had last communicated. Certainly it hadn't been between their conversation and dinner.

"I had the privelege of listening to your conversation over this," said Darsum easily, tapping his earpiece. With a flash of panic, Rose realized that the Delta had probably been listening to them this entire time. Hopefully her acting skills were up to par, then.

"Why didn't you just come into the room with us?" Martha asked logically, her brows furrowed. "It would have been a lot easier."

A flush of pink crept up Darsum's cheeks. "Just answer the question!" He snapped at Rose.

In a fit of impudence, Rose shook her head and said innocently, "I'm sorry, I can't remember what it was."

Shani snorted and another soldier Rose didn't recognize smirked. Darsum growled.

"Why did you claim to be the Doctor's companion?" He snarled furiously.

"Simple." Rose replied complacently with a tiny shrug of her shoulders. "A lot of the places I've been to were friendly with the Doctor. It was easier to get around if people thought I knew him, and even in places where he was the enemy, it usually intimidated anyone I happened to…run into."

"Convenient." Darsum sneered disdainfully.

"Yep," agreed Rose with a small, sad smile.

"Can you still help us?" Shani asked after a brief, tense moment of silence. "Can you still save our Omega?" There was some shifting among the guards, as if they had all had the same thought as well. Darsum shot his subordinate a dirty but resigned glare.

Rose hesitated before slowly rising to her feet, ignoring the guns trained on her. She lifted her chin. The tears drying on her cheeks made her face feel stiff and…well, cried-on.

"I can." She declared confidently.

In all honesty, she was terrified and out of her mind with nervous anticipation for whatever was going to happen to her and Martha next. With any luck they would be free to go, but she couldn't actually see that happening – when was the last time they had had any luck with the bad guys? Besides, she really did want to know if there was anything they could do to save the Omega's life. It would probably prevent chaos at least, especially if all the other Omegas were going through the same thing. Anarchy and rebellion were the last thing she and Martha needed after conquering witches bent on destroying the future by means of a Shakespearean play.

After a long minute in which Rose wondered if he would ever make up his mind, Darsum nodded. The soldiers relaxed and lowered their weapons. The tension did not fade, however. "You are still forbidden from returning to your ship until you have proven your loyalty. You will remain within the palace for the duration of the night and an escort will be sent to your rooms in the morning to take you to your shuttle. In the meantime," he smirked at Martha, nodding pointedly at the memorials lining the walls, "feel free to explore."

With that, Darsum turned on his heel and left, lumbering through what was left of the splintered door. Shani looked at them in sympathy before following him and Polin gave them a searching, suspicious glare on his way out the door. The others didn't even spare them a glance. Martha scrambled to her feet as soon as the room had been cleared and together she and Rose left the creepy room of decapitated heads and jars behind.

"Were you – ?"

Rose looked at her sharply and shook her head. She knew what Martha intended to ask, and Rose wanted nothing more than to tell her that those horrific lies about the Doctor were _not_ true, but they couldn't risk being overheard.

"So, want to explore?" She suggested cheerfully. Martha shuddered. Rose chuckled, though she certainly did not blame the other woman. Those heads were _horrible_.

**ΘΣ ... ****ΘΣ**

Rose was restless. She hadn't been able to sleep in months, yet she did not feel as if she had to. Martha, of course, was out cold almost as soon as she laid down, dressed in the same clothes she had been when Rose had taken her to Elizabethan England. Rose wrinkled her nose; that could not be comfortable. They would have to drop by Martha's house at some point to collect her stuff.

Wait, what the hell was she _thinking_? Martha was _not_ going to be a "companion" and certainly had no reason to collect anything from anywhere for any reason. She did not deserve that torture, particularly since Rose could hardly protect her the way the Doctor would have been able, as was proven by this latest catastrophe.

Of course, it didn't even occur to her that she might ever wonder whether the Doctor would mind _Rose_ staying aboard the TARDIS. It wasn't like she had a choice: she had nothing else left.

She sighed. Idleness was bad. Idleness led to boredom, and boredom led to thinking. Thinking led to pain, and pain led to more pain. More pain gave into depression, and depression was bad. Very bad.

There were times when she absolutely hated her life. _FML_, she thought sarcastically.

Rose sat up in her cot, glancing across the room to Martha's lightly snoring lump of even more idleness.

This was getting ridiculous.

Kicking off the covers, Rose stepped into her shoes and crept silently to the door, which opened soundlessly when she yanked on the cast iron handle.

The hall was cool and possibly freezing but Rose didn't let it bother her. It felt refreshing after the smothering stillness of her bed in the room she and Martha shared in the palace. There was no light, so she had to feel along the cold stone walls as she walked, running her fingers over alternating rough stone and the smooth wood of the doors. The night smelled of honeysuckle and dust, reminding her irresistably of the TARDIS library. Thinking of the TARDIS made her feel homesick so she pressed on desperately, determined to find something to distract her.

The silence was deafening, taking her breathing and heartbeat and amplifying them a hundredfold because there was nothing else to hear. Rose found that the palace really was not as large as she had originally perceived it to be. It must have been the fatigue that had made it seem taller than Mount Everest, because before long she found herself back in the corridor down which was the door to the room with the memorial for the Time War. She skirted carefully around that area (the door had been broken down by Darsum and Polin after Martha's scream had revealed their position) and, since her eyes had adjusted and she could make her way without feeling like she needed a very well-trained dog to see for her, she climbed the stairs a few floors before making a random turn. As soon as she rounded the corner, she froze in her tracks and reflexively shrank back into the shadows.

A door was cracked open, light filtering into the corridor, and voices softly trailed to her. As she bit her bottom lip and crept closer, drawn purely by nerve and curiosity, Rose realized that she recognized the room. It was the Delta's study, and Delta Garland was speaking with Darsum.

All but holding her breath, Rose pressed her body against the open door and peered through the crack to see the Delta sitting in one of the chairs in front of his desk and Darsum pacing aggressively, burning a deep hole into the rug beneath said chair. His angry voice filtered like smoke through the door and into Rose's ears.

"Sir, with all due respect, what you are doing is foolishness!"

The Delta smiled belligerently like a parent weathering a young child's tantrum.

"They will lead us to ruin!" Darsum continued, either not noticing how petulant he sounded or not caring that he did. "And as you gloat in the ashes of our plans, the Rebellion will strike us down while we are weak!"

"I know what I am doing, _Captain_," said Delta Garland easily, emphasizing the guard's rank. Darsum stopped pacing and stiffened his spine at the position of attention. He now blocked Rose's view of the Delta. "And it is truly no business of yours. They will not interfere. To destroy that box we must get inside it, and to do that, we need them alive. Do not insult me with your incessant ramblings of apocalypse."

Darsum almost audibly clenched his teeth. Rose swore she could hear them grinding from where she stood.

"Sir, the…_box_ is unimportant. You are losing sight of the wilderness for a sapling, for a blade of _grass_. The Doctor's time has passed, the Time War is over, and we must rebuild. _This_ is our true path."

Rose heard the Delta sigh a long-suffered breath of annoyance. "I am well aware of that, thank you. It is of my opinion, however, that just because the war has ended does not make it gone. Its influence digs into the very roots of our society like termites and they must be exterminated before we can move on. It is the way of things, I am afraid."

While Rose shivered slightly at the turn of phrase, Darsum shook with an effort to contain his blatant frustration.

"Is it secure?" The Delta asked before Darsum could say something that would probably get him booted from the royal guard. Rose couldn't see his face, but imagined his expression was amused.

Darsum nodded shortly, obviously still miffed. "In the lower levels, sir. The Woodland City remains undisturbed."

"There have been no further movements from the Rebellion, then?"

"No, sir."

"Hmm…" the Delta hummed. Rose imagined him rubbing his five o'clock shadow in thought. "Interesting. They have been too quiet of late, those revolutionaries. No doubt the doing of those troublesome traitors. Oh, well. Their usefulness has passed, although…the timing of this is certainly peculiar." He paused as if to gain his bearings. "Any luck breaking the lock?"

"None, sir. It is said that the hordes of civilization's mightiest armies were unable to penetrate its defenses, so I cannot say I am surprised."

Rose smirked. It was good to know the TARDIS was safe, anyway. She and Martha could probably find it in the 'lower levels' if they really had need to. Rose had to learn more before she risked that, however. She had a feeling that the morning would bring news and events that would crack most everything wide open.

Darsum shifted in agitation. "Sir, I really must insist that Rose and that Martha girl be put awa –"

"ENOUGH!" The Delta roared. Darsum flinched and Rose jumped. Rose heard Garland rise laboriously but expediently to his feet, carrying all the weight of his elegancy with difficulty. "You try my patience! Leave me, Captain, and send the traitors in your stead. I need to let go of this…_stress._"

With a hastily stifled intake of breath, Rose realized that meant her position was seconds away from being compromised. She spun around, whipping out her sonic screwdriver. The lock of the nearest door clicked quietly and she hurried inside. She made it to safety just as Darsum entered the corridor. Rose listened carefully as his footsteps hesitated and stopped, his deep breathing just audible if she strained her ears. Finally, apparently detecting nothing out of the ordinary, Darsum continued on his way, footsteps fading into the distance. Rose sighed with relief with her back against the door of her hiding place, a thankfully empty and seemingly abandoned chamber. She allowed herself a moment to still her hammering heart.

Summoning all of her will and energy, she pushed away from the door, opened it, and peeked outside. The Delta's study door was closed and darkness cloaked the corridor. Barely pausing to quietly shut the door behind her and lock it, Rose strolled swiftly and silently back to the bedroom she and Martha shared.

She spent the rest of that night sitting idly at the foot of her bed trying to figure out why her skin tingled fiercely as she pondered Darsum's reasons for wanting them dead and Delta Garland's reasons for wanting so badly to break into the TARDIS. It was as if there was something just of reach trying to tell her something important.

Rose stared hard at Martha's lightly snoring form and wondered just how far she would go to protect her new charge. Then she glared intently at one hand as her heart pounded forcefully, pumping time-lost energy through her veins that shone dimly through her skin like so many glittering lights. She questioned her inexplicable insomnia and that heightened intuition she'd seemed to have since that witch in Bethlam Hospital had tried to kill her.

Rose had to think, for the first time since she had added the Doctor's name (or lack thereof) to the Battle of Canary Wharf's memorial for the dead, of just how much the Doctor had changed her life. Had changed _her_. She had lost everything, much more than she had ever realized she'd even had. Including, evidently, her humanity.

A single tear trembled plaintively down her nose to drip onto the form-fitting black leather jacket she had been wearing for what she felt was an eternity. She had taken it off for bed but had slipped it back on upon her return from her midnight walk. Beneath that, she wore a dark green jumper and black jeans.

Rose smiled an odd smile, not one of mirth, irony, bitterness, duplicity or even hostility as smiles often do, but rather one that seemed almost feral in its bizarre intensity and twisted with methodically cold indifference yet uplifted by underlying joy, passion and awe. This arabesque contradiction infested her entire face like a disease and ate at her masks like acid, revealing beneath them a vulnerabilty so profound as to shake the universe whole.

She supposed, if she really took the time to think about it (and of course she did, because there was nothing much else to do in the still and forlorn hours of the long and lonely night), that she had gained much more than she had ever lost.

Rose Tyler was no longer an ignorant shop girl working at Henrik's and living with her mother after ditching her A-levels, eating beans on toast with her boyfriend and chatting at all hours with her girlfriends and cheerfully settling for the hand she had been dealt because she could do no less or more.

Now, she was confident, even powerful. She had at her fingertips the ability to travel time and space at a whim, to wreak havoc and save lives and change futures for better or worse. She knew now to stand up for her principles even if everyone else around her believed them wrong, and she knew how to put her own life on hold for the benefit of another world, galaxy, or any single individual. She knew what it was like to sacrifice herself for something she believed in and she knew how to sacrifice everything (and everyone, when it came to it) she believed in to let someone else have a chance at the same privelege of believing in something they thought was right.

She knew how the universe burned, had been privy to every secret held within, and had an inkling as to its meaning. She knew fear – intimately – and had faced it and run away from it; and she knew happiness, had lived the fruit of it for a short time; and she knew agony, having been suffering it for seventeen Earth months (the TARDIS had done the calculations for her); and she knew wonder, having seen so many faces of it all across time and space; and she knew hatred, having been feeling it for Torchwood, the Daleks, and the Cybermen for so long.

She knew love, and that was more than she could say for so many people.

Rose was watching when the next day dawned. The golden sunlight spilled into the room through the window, a great swathe of it bathing Martha's face with an iridescent glow. The sleeping woman stirred. Rose continued to stare at the rising sun, waiting patiently for her companion to rise. She felt oddly more at peace with herself than she had for a long time.

Below, the palace courtyard stretched blithely, yawning, as it woke from its peaceful slumber. The flowers shone a prism of colors, aching for the ball of fire in the silvery-blue sky. Early risers roamed the cobblestone pathways, none in any hurry to reach their destination, all captured by the simple beauty of the moment. Marble carvings of figures utterly unrecognizeable in the glare of light and drowned by their own shadows loomed omnipotently above their oblivious subjects. Crystallized tears on blades of grass sparkled like many-faceted jewels and the trees shook and sighed softly under the loving caresses of the whispering zephyrs awakening from their restless sleep.

"What are you thinking?"

Though startled, Rose didn't jump. Martha was laying drowsily on her side, gazing up at Rose through bleary dark eyes still drunk with the remnants of her rest. While Rose watched her peripherally, her attention remained focused on the breathtaking sight before her. Every detail seemed to scream at her with crystal clarity. She wondered how she could have ever survived being so unaware of the world before. Realizing that she had been silent for several more moments than was appropriate, Rose smirked.

"I'm thinking about that spot of drool on your pillow."

Martha hastily sat up and looked down then blushed deeply when she saw that there was nothing there. Rose laughed, feeling a bit lighter for doing so.

Martha rolled her eyes. "Very funny. Seriously, though. I've never seen you so quiet."

"I didn't know you could see silence," said Rose, teasing.

In the courtyard, the silhouette of a man walked into a tree. He jerked back, apparently startled, and looked around sneakily to see if anybody had noticed his inattentive clumsiness. Rose snorted quietly, and the man moved on, strutting slightly with his nose in the air.

"But I can see something's changed." Martha responded. She was sitting up now, and reaching for the ceiling. Her back and shoulders popped obligingly and she groaned in satisfaction. "What is it?"

Rose hesitated. The same man at whom she had laughed tripped over what had to be an ant. Probably because he'd been too busy sniffing the clouds to see where he was going, let alone the poor unsuspecting insect crawling in his way.

"The Doctor was a good man," she said. Martha's head shot up at this. "Well, alien," Rose amended with a smile. "Of all things, he'd wanted to _arrest_ the Nestene Consciousness. Sort of. Anyway, long story short, I ended up saving him, and the world, by swinging like a Tarzan wannabe on a rusty chain. In a way, _I_ killed the Consciousness by knocking the anti-plastic thing into it."

Martha's eyebrows had near reached her hairline by this point, but she didn't say anything. Rose let out a shaky breath.

"When you an' I first met, we talked about the Battle of Canary Wharf."

Martha nodded. "You said you were there." She paused uncertainly before venturing cautiously, "What happened?"

"The Daleks and Cybermen were taking over the world, fighting each other for it an' killing every human who got anywhere near 'em," Rose explained. She looked into the burning sun without blinking or squinting, seeing something else very far away and a quite a while past. "The Doctor and I were in the middle of it all. You've been with me long enough now, you can imagine how that happened." Martha nodded soberly. "The Cybermen weren't from this universe. They came from a world with zeppelins an' a President instead of a Prime Minister and a dad who died twenty years earlier."

Martha's face twitched in confusion. Rose knew that without looking. She smiled slightly. "It's hard to explain. There are tons of alternate universes out there, where different choices were made, where people were never born and plans never made an' luck that ran out. You following?"

"I think so," Martha replied tentatively. "So those metal men were from one of these…alternate universes?"

"Yeah. An' my dad – the one that died in this universe when I was jus' a few months old – was fighting them. An' my mum got caught up in it, too. I mean, we didn't even notice she was there, she was just…she was in the TARDIS when we took off. An accident, really."

Rose paused, gathering her thoughts. Martha was smiling a little.

"So it was sort of a family thing, then?"

Rose smiled sadly. "You could say that. Anyway, the Doctor came up with a way to suck the Cybermen and the Daleks back where they came from, into the Void."

"What's that?"

"It's…" Rose bit her lip, still staring at the sunrise; "…nothing. Literally nothing. No light, no dark. No thought, no emotion. Some people call it Hell. The Carrionites called it the Howling." Martha's face lit with understanding; Rose could see it without looking. "The Void separates the different universes. When the Cybermen…_leaked_ here, they tore a huge hole in the fabric of our universe. At least, that's how the Doctor described it. The problem was that everyone who had ever been through the Void, to another universe, would get sucked in along with the bad guys. My dad took my mum to the other universe so they would be safe. The Doctor tried to make me go, too, but I wouldn't let him."

Martha looked at her thoughtfully. Rose leaned casually against the window, eyes dry, but her voice had become monotonous and detached.

"We had these magnet-things to hold onto, so when it started, we had a chance at surviving. But the Doctor…he had to let go, to fix something that had gone wrong, and his grip wasn't strong enough…he fell. But then, at the last second, my dad, Pete, he…I dunno why, he jus'…he came back, for some reason, just in time to keep the Doctor from being…lost."

"But he's alive, though," said Martha reasonably. "Isn't that good?"

Rose smiled, a spark of life coming back to her eyes. "It is. I have no way to get back to 'im…but I will, someday."

Suddenly she turned to Martha. Remarkably, she wasn't half-blind from her extended exposure to such bright light. There weren't even little black spots in her vision. Everything seemed just as startlingly clear as they had before, like a veil had been lifted from her eyes.

"I tell you this because you deserve to know, Martha. You deserve to know why I am the way I am…why these people reacted to the TARDIS the way they did. A lot of people didn't like the Doctor. He had a way of changing things, and not everyone liked the way he changed them. I probably shouldn't, either. Because of him, I lost everything I had, except for the TARDIS."

"You love him." Martha observed calmly. Rose nodded.

"Yes, I do. It's hard not to."

Comfortable silence reigned for a few minutes. Then Martha stood and joined Rose at the window. Unlike Rose, she could not withstand the blinding glare peeking over the short outer walls of the castle and so settled for watching Rose watch the beautiful courtyard instead.

"Can you really help them?" Martha inquired bravely.

"I don't know." Rose answered honestly. "I'm not the Doctor."

"You don't need to be," Martha said almost reflexively. Rose shot her a curious look and she shrugged. "You've saved the world without him. You can do it again."

Rose smiled. "Thanks for the vote of confidence."

"It's what I'm here for." Martha grinned back.

Rose's smile faltered. "And that could get you killed." She spoke seriously. Martha blinked, taken aback.

"Yeah, and?" She retorted, not understanding. Rose sighed.

"I couldn't sleep last night. Haven't been able to for a long while, actually." Martha frowned with concern. Rose flashed a small, reassuring smile at that. "I found Darsum in the Delta's study. They were talkin' about trying to break into the TARDIS and Darsum was upset because the Delta wants to keep us alive. They're planning something, and Darsum is sure we're gonna ruin it somehow."

"Sounds like we have our work cut out for us," said Martha, bemused. Rose shook her head.

"It would be easier if we could just leave. The TARDIS is in the lower levels of the palace. We could just go. If you want. All you have to do is say the word, and we'll be gone."

Martha shook her head from side to side almost violently, indignant.

"Why would we do that? You gave your word you'd try to help them! Why would you back out now?"

Rose clenched her teeth in frustration. "I don't know if I _can_ help them, Martha, haven't you been listening? And there's something else going on here. Whatever it is, I don't like it."

"So?" Said Martha blankly, uncomprehending. "That's nothing new. You can just make it up as you go along. You're good at that, you know."

Rose growled. Her voice rose several notches, making the other woman flinch. "This isn't a game, Martha! You haven't seen your family at all since you left with me; have you thought about them? Have you thought about what it would be like for me to drag your corpse back to them – me, a complete stranger, bringing their daughter and sister and friend home dead or dying, with an explanation so ridiculous an' impossible they wouldn't believe it? Have you thought about that at all?"

Martha stared at her, slack-jawed and shocked dumb. She honestly had not given hardly any thought to her family since walking inside that magic blue box. With the state of things as they were, she hadn't cared to devote anything more to them than what they had already taken in the past. This whirlwind adventure had been her escape from reality, her fantasy roller coaster ride through time and space, and now she wasn't as sure about embarking on it. Maybe Rose had a point.

Rose watched the play of emotions on Martha's face. The poor girl wore her heart on her sleeve; she was so easy to read, it was almost as if Rose could hear her thoughts. And she knew she was getting through to her. Just another little push was all it would take. Then she could take Martha back to Earth, to the twenty-first century where everything made sense, and Rose could return and deal with whatever was happening in the Omega System, alone. Or, if Martha was anything like Rose had once been, Martha could still refuse to leave and Rose would either take her back by force or desperately try to protect her as the storm closed in around them.

Rose's voice became low but no less passionate. "I've called you my companion, Martha. I shouldn't have. I was the Doctor's companion. Only the Doctor _could_ have companions. Just one trip, I thought, just one relaxing trip someplace nice as thanks for saving my life, and then I would take you home where you belonged. And then, after that mess with Shakespeare, I thought, well, we could try again, somewhere I knew better, where I knew it was peaceful, and now look where we are. I can't protect you, Martha. I can't promise everything will be okay, because it won't. It never is with me. So just give the word, Martha, and we'll leave. I'll take you home. We'll find the TARDIS and get out of here before it's too late."

Slowly, Martha shook her head. Then, with more confidence, she looked Rose in the eye. Rose's burgeoning hope abruptly fell.

"No."

"What?" Rose's tone was incredulous. Personally, she'd thought she had been very convincing. Martha shook her head again, more firmly this time. Her eyes shone brightly and determinedly.

"I said 'no'! It's _not_ always like that with you, don't you see? You _can_ promise me that everything will be okay; you _can_ protect me."

Rose narrowed her eyes angrily and opened her mouth to protest, but Martha cut her off quickly.

"You can," she insisted resolutely. "And you know why? Because I trust you, Rose Tyler. I believe in you."

Rose's eyes widened in shock. Before she could say anything, however (something preferably along the lines of "What are you _on_?"), there came a sharp, persistent rapping at the door. They both turned toward it automatically.

"The shuttle is ready now, if you're ready to go," came a muffled voice beyond the wooden portal. Rose dimly registered that it was Polin.

"Yes!" shouted Martha entirely too loudly and eagerly. "We're ready! Just wait right there!"

Rose glared at her. Martha pretended not to notice, disappearing gaily into the facilities. Rose felt rather violated, robbed of her right to peaceful assembly (a.k.a., colorful and extremely mouthy argumentative protesting). In spite of herself, however, she could not help but feel proud of Martha Jones.

**ΘΣ ... ****ΘΣ**

Shani was standing in front of the shuttle when Rose and Martha were escorted to it by Polin. Martha noticed with some concern that Shani's eyes were red and puffy and her face was hard and stony. Apparently she had had a very bad morning. Luckily, Darsum was nowhere in sight. Martha would have been hard-pressed to refrain from slapping him.

The shuttle was little more than a sleek sliver of metal with a few hard, uncomfortable seats. Inside, it was dark, cramped, and slightly scary. All in all, Martha preferred the TARDIS as a means of transportation.

Polin handed his gun to Shani and clambered into the pilot's seat. Through the massive window that covered the nose of the ship, Martha could see the forest, the launch pad, and blinding sunlight. She wished the clouds would come out and hide the sun again, for it seemed brighter and more unbearable than the one she was used to. At the very least, she thought, she could desperately use some sunglasses.

Shani instructed them to buckle in – there were numerous buckles and straps that Martha couldn't make much sense of until Shani guided her through them. She felt embarrassed by this, as though she were being taught how to tie her shoes. Shani avoided her eyes when Martha asked how she was doing and ordered her to lean back in her seat when they started take off or else she would start to feel nauseous.

Martha didn't care if she threw up all over the shuttle, she wanted to know what was bothering Shani. Polin wasn't any better; he kept stuttering as Martha tried to make small talk. Eventually, Polin just clamped his pale lips shut, faced front with his back to her, fixed his straps with trembling fingers, and played incessantly with the controls. The buttons made annoying little beeps when he hit them and it grated on Martha's nerves. She felt a headache looming behind her eyes.

Rose, for her part, was utterly silent, which Martha couldn't help but think didn't seem at all like her. She watched Rose watch Polin and saw the other woman narrow her eyes slightly at every stutter he made. She watched Rose's brows furrow when the man turned away and his fingers shook. Martha wondered what it meant.

And Rose watched Martha's interaction with Shani, too, as if she were trying to piece together a puzzle. When Rose flicked her head in Shani's direction and quirked her eyebrows just before lift-off, Martha knew that Rose had something to tell her but couldn't around their guards. Martha shrugged at her to indicate she had no idea what was going on, either. So they sat back to enjoy the ride.

What a helluva ride it was! Lift-off was as terrifying as it was exhilerating. The entire shuttle shook like a giant maraca, rattling Martha's bones against the inside of her flesh. G-forces slammed her back into her seat like she was being pinned down by an elephant and her teeth chattered so uncontrollably she feared she would bite off her own tongue.

And then there was the black. Pure black, like she had never seen black before, littered with the invasion of bright pinpricks of light. She had seen such a wondrous sight only once before, in Royal Hope Hospital on the moon, with Rose laughing and spinning under the earthlight and Martha gaping at the impossibility of it all. Now she was over how impossible it all was, but she was not quite ready to give in to dancing in the midst of danger. Especially when she couldn't even stand up.

However, in space, everything was still. One thing that Martha had not been privy to before was the utter silence that permeated nothingness. There was no vacuum inside the shuttle, but they could feel it eating at them, sucking at their minds, their ears, stealing thought and sound and sight. Martha understood then how a person could go mad out in the black. It was lonely and beautiful. Beautiful loneliness. Emptiness. Sucking up light, except for those distant, unreachable pinpricks. She inhaled deeply, wondered what she was breathing, exhaled slowly, decided it didn't matter.

She looked at Rose, who was not, as she would have guessed, staring with joy out the nose of the shuttle. Rather, Rose was staring fixedly at Martha. Martha met her intense gaze and had to look away quickly for the uncomfortable intimacy of it. The black, Martha decided firmly, reminded her of Rose. Beautiful loneliness. Emptiness trying to be filled through endless wanderlust. Distant, nearly unreachable bits of light hiding in the shadows. A vacuum sucking at Martha's mind, her ears, stealing her thoughts and replacing sound with a howling _noise_ that would not go away because she didn't want it to.

Rose was a raging fire and Martha was a hapless moth. Behind Rose's eyes was fire burning gold with power Martha could not hope to understand and Martha's eyes were charred black by the flames of her hope. Hope that there was more to life than normalcy. Hope that there really was something out there worth fighting and living for. Hope that dreams really could come true.

The stillness was broken by a flash of light and Martha let out a breath she had not realized she was holding. They had somehow approached the planet of their destination without her noticing and were now plunging into its atmosphere, a fireball braving disintegration. Martha's stomach plummeted beneath her feet and got left behind in space as the shuttle broke atmo and skimmed the top of a massive mountain before circling around it and streaking across the sky at the speed of a bullet. Blurs of blue and green flashed beneath them; Martha couldn't make sense of it, but Rose watched the blurs avidly as if memorizing the topography of the entire planet.

Then suddenly there was an acute smell in the air that Martha was slowly beginning to associate with panic. Polin was punching at the buttons on the control panel rapidly and bright red and yellow lights flashed off and on in the shuttle, blinding her. As the shuttle began to shake and tremble, Shani unbuckled herself from her seat with deft, precise motions and steadied herself with a hand on Martha's shoulder. Martha was struggling to unhook all her buckles but couldn't understand it and couldn't focus with all the deafening alarms and bright lights in her face.

Dimly, she registered that Polin was not jamming at buttons in a frantic attempt to fix the malfunction: he was _causing_ the malfunction. She heard screaming and belatedly realized it was her own; Polin was leaving the pilot's seat and the shuttle was bucking like a horse rebelling against its rider. Shani had her gun pointed at Polin and she was yelling something but Martha couldn't hear her over the klaxons and her own screaming and the sparks coming off the controls in front and Rose's cold silence.

Shani was knocked off balance by a jerk of the shuttle and Polin took the opportunity to stab at her with a knife he'd drawn from his boot. Shani twisted to the side just in time and Polin fell over. The knife caught Shani in the leg, cutting deep into her thigh all the way to the hilt. Rose had gotten free and was swimming through smoke and Martha still fumbled with her own harness, desperate to help, to _not crash_, and Shani was collapsed next her with her hands covered in blood as shock suffused her red, puffy eyes.

Martha finally stood up, her legs shaking so badly she couldn't walk on them. The smoke was stinging her eyes and throat and she was coughing, tears streaming down her cheeks, but she could still see through the nose of the shuttle and they were coming closer and closer to the ground, almost there, almost _crashed_ –

Polin had run to a corner of the shuttle, Rose hot on his heels. He slammed his palm onto a button and a section of the shuttle wall slid open to reveal what looked like a small, empty closet. Martha had watched enough science fiction to realize that it was an escape pod. Apparently, Rose realized the same thing because she reached in and tried to yank Polin back into the shuttle. Polin yanked harder; he was stronger, and Rose toppled into the pod with him. The wall closed up again and Martha felt the shuttle rock and knew that they were gone.

Martha ran over to the wall and slammed her fist over and over into the button, but nothing happened. There were no escape pods left. Coughing, she forced her way on shaky legs and a bucking floor to Shani, who lay unconscious under one of the seats. But she was alive, so Martha wrapped one arm around her and one arm through the harness of one of the seats and braced herself for impact with burning lungs and gritted teeth.

**ΘΣ ... ****ΘΣ**

Rose felt suffocated, squished, and she was flying, hardly breathing, through darkness and terror. The pod rolled over and upside down and sideways and she really could not tell who was on top of whom – her or Polin – and suddenly there was a jarring thud that rattled her teeth and threw her against the side of the pod. It sprang open and she rolled out quickly, coming to her feet immediately, adrenaline surging in her veins, ready for a fight. Polin stumbled up and out of the crashed escape pod and as soon he saw her he launched himself in her direction.

Rose sidestepped and lashed out blindly with either a leg or a fist – she really wasn't sure which, she was so disoriented – and he fell to the ground groaning in pain and clutching his nose. Then Polin pushed himself to his feet with an enormous grunt of effort and swung wildly at her. She ducked and dove at him, tackling the larger man to the ground. She pummeled her fists into his face, consumed by rage and confusion, blood flowing hotly over her knuckles, until Polin finally managed to roll over and pin her beneath him. She escaped and he socked her in the gut, sucking the breath from her lungs.

She lay winded on the hot, dry ground, feeling sore and dizzy and too furious to care. She saw Polin in a similar state on his knees to her right and tried to sit up so she could go at him again when she heard an all-too familiar sound; the sound of many people clicking off the safeties of their guns. Rose froze in place and glared upward through a curtain of her dirty, tangled mass of hair.

About a dozen rag-tag warriors aimed their muzzles at her head. One of them helped Polin to his feet. Rose tiredly fell to her knees and folded her hands behind her head in surrender. She glared at Polin, feeling unfamiliar hatred burning like acid in her stomach. Golden fire obscured her vision, but she pushed it way impatiently, wanting – _needing_ – to understand.

Through blood and chipped teeth and black eyes, Polin grinned at her without mirth.

"Welcome to the Rebellion, Rose Tyler."

**_Written by Black Alya Wolf  
__Edited by Furyism_**

**TBC in the original episode written by Furyism, _Stars and Scars_!**


	7. Stars and Scars Part I

_Previously, in Omega Black by BAW:_

"_Year five billion and fifty-three," she narrated to Martha, starting the materialization sequence. "New Earth, fifty-thousand light-years from Old Earth, in New New York." They stepped outside, and…were surrounded._

"_Where is the Doctor?"_

_Rose shook her head, tears unshed glimmering like fire in her eyes. _

"_He's gone."_

"_Save our Omegas. We've done everything. Some say the rebels have poisoned them. No one knows for sure, and our doctors have no cure."_

"_They are savage creatures. Our traditions have protected us from war for the last millenia. Now they wish to bathe our solar system in the blood of our people."_

"_Anything you can get you can lose." Darsum chortled._

"_How would you know?" Rose's voice was bitter. "Lose something recently?"_

"_Not recently, no. But I was once the advisor for the Omega of Omega XVI himself, Omega Black."_

"_It is of my opinion, however, that just because the war has ended does not make it gone. Its influence digs into the very roots of our society like termites and they must be exterminated."_

"_The Doctor and any who claim to be a friend of his are our enemy."_

"_The Doctor had a way of changing things, and not everyone liked the way he changed them. I can't protect you, Martha. I can't promise everything will be okay, because it won't. It never is with me."_

"_I trust you, Rose Tyler. I believe in you."_

_Martha wrapped one arm around Shani and one arm through the harness of one of the seats and braced herself for impact._

"_Welcome to the Rebellion, Rose Tyler."_

**Episode Four  
****Stars and Scars, Part I  
**_**(Orignal work by Furyism)**_

They survived the crash. Martha didn't really expect that from either of them, watching the ground come at them faster than she could comprehend, but the proof was in her standing afterwards – wobbly, but alive.

She managed to shield Shani from a bit of the impact, but it was still jarring and jolted the injured woman from her unwilling slumber. The harness was torn from Martha's hand and the ship squeezed in around them like an empty soda can; Martha toppled to the side and banged her head on the floor before she could catch herself. Shani flew from her grip and hit the opposite wall with a crunch that would have made Martha wince if she wasn't so busy trying to see through the blinding pain that had become that round thing sitting on top of her neck.

And then everything was so still and perfectly quiet that at first Martha could have been made to believe that she really had died, except for an incessant ringing in her ears that would not fade. Shani groaned and shattered the illusion. Martha scrambled upward and regretted it, stumbling forward dizzily and only catching her balance with the help of the shuttle's roof, which had caved in and lay slanted against one wall. Smoke was filtering out of the hole and sunlight and fresh air poured in.

When the world stopped spinning faster than she could hold onto it, Martha walked over to Shani, who was struggling to stand up with only the help of one arm. Martha sat her back down amid the standard soldier's protesting and checked her over for injuries. No head trauma, no broken bones; a dislocated shoulder and the knife wound Polin had inflicted were all the injury Martha could see.

"Is there anything we can use to clean this? Water maybe?"

Shani pointed her to the crushed cockpit and Martha returned with a severely dented, metal red box. She eyed several simple medicines she didn't recognize and Shani helped her by taking a bottle and swallowing three of its tablets dry. Martha decided not to say anything about it and set about cleaning and bandaging Shani's leg. Shani cried out when Martha tugged the knife out with one sharp pull.

"Sorry," she muttered.

Shani simply passed out when Martha tied the last knot in the bandage, but came to when Martha set her shoulder. The pills she'd taken didn't seem to help very much. Martha took off her jacket and made a sling of it.

Shani rested while Martha cleaned the small wound on her own head and held a chemical ice pack to it. Still holding it there, she made her laborious way to the cockpit and crawled through what was left of the opening. She found a radio right away, but either it wasn't working or Martha had no idea how to use it because she couldn't even get static to sound. She fiddled with all of the controls, but it seemed that the shuttle had no power left in it. Everything was shattered and it was hard to move around without running into something sharp like glass or metal shrapnel.

An hour later, Shani took a look at it and declared the shuttle, and its radio, to be dead. They drank some water and packed up what few supplies they had. Then they began a long trek to the nearest town, Kendle.

When Martha looked over her shoulder at the wreck they had miraculously survived, she marveled that it looked a bit like a train engine had made a lifetime commitment with a runaway metro and the divorce hadn't gone as smoothly as anyone might have wanted. Bits of metal and glass surrounded the small crater the shuttle had made and all the blackened trees around it had fallen. It was a scar on the world, she thought.

It was slow going, with Martha and her headache (which seemed a living thing of its own) supporting Shani and Shani hopping on one leg most of the way. The land was barren and dry, like a desert, with a forest of dead trees. Thankfully, there was some cloud cover, so the sun wasn't a particular menace, nor was it unbearably hot. They had enough water, with much rationing and some suffering of parched throats and sandpaper mouths, to walk about fifty kilometers, which was about how far they needed to go to reach Kendle. They had no food.

They stopped every forty-five minutes (by Martha's count) to rest in the shade of a dead tree or big rock. It was only while resting that they tried to talk to each other. Walking required too much effort on its own.

"So what happened here?" Martha asked once, gesturing to all the dead trees surrounding them like silent spectres witnessing an important journey.

"The Death Sickness," Shani replied, wiping some sweat off her brow with her green cap. Martha had used the bloody knife they'd kept from Polin's betrayal to cut her jeans into shorts and had tied a strip of the soft denim around her forehead to catch the sweat. "And the war too, probably."

"What do you mean?"

"The Sickness got into the plants somehow and destroyed them. The war depleted our population by about three quarters and with no one to care for the land and cure the trees, they simply dried out. This is the Wastelands of Omega XVI. Most planets have at least one. No one has attempted to fix it up because it stands as a symbol for everything we've lost."

There was a haunted, hollow tone to Shani's voice that Martha really didn't like and that reminded her too much of Rose. She didn't want to think about Rose, who could be dead, or who probably thought that Martha was dead, while she was attempting to survive a strange planet with a depressed, injured soldier and a monstrous headache.

"One day," said Martha firmly as she pushed herself off the dusty ground, "this place is gonna be the greenest, liveliest place you ever saw in your life."

Shani laughed at her.

Later, after the sun had finished climbing its peak and was just starting to fall, they crouched most of the way under a boulder. When Martha tried to catch her breath, it stuck in her throat and her stomach rolled unpleasantly. She leaned out into the light and retched violently, losing whatever was left of last night's tiny dinner. The pain in her head spiked in a rising crescendo that made her dizzy and even more breathless. She dry-heaved for several minutes before her aching muscles ceased to fight themselves and she was able to lean back and try to recover. When she lifted a hand to check the area her head had been injured, it came back bloody.

Shani was looking at her with some concern after handing her the jug of water they were sharing. "If it is any consolation, I feel fine."

Martha smiled weakly and allowed herself a few big swallows. They still had about thirty klicks to walk. She was feeling a bit clammy, her arms and legs like jelly. Water sloshed from side to side in the jug when she handed it back. She took a deep breath and tried to calm her nerves.

"If we keep going, we get to Kendle, I'll be fine," said Martha, but her voice cracked a little. "Rose would know what to do. She probably would have fixed that radio."

"But she's not here," said Shani gently, repositioning her immobile arm against her chest. "And we are. We'll have to make do."

Martha agreed.

She checked Shani's bandages and was satisfied that although the wound on her thigh had reopened sometime during their walk, it was not yet infected. She quickly replaced the soiled bandages with clean ones and then looked at her with a rueful smile.

"I think it's going to scar, sorry."

Shani shook her head. "Nah, that's alright. It's something to be proud of. A badge of honor. Proof that I have fought for something worth living for."

Martha sighed. "I hope Rose is all right." Shani's face fell.

"Sure she is," she said, patting Martha on the knee. "She seems real tough. A warrior. A leader, too, and you don't see many of those."

Martha looked askance at her and said, "You are, though."

Shani looked surprised. "Huh?"

"You are. I can see it, just like Rose. You can dream, you can see the stars. But it's like, you _can_ lead, but you don't because other people are trying to or, I dunno, maybe something's holding you back. What is it?"

Shani deliberately did not answer and rose to her feet. She determined the position of the sun and nodded. "We should get going. Sooner we get to Kendle, the better."

So Martha resignedly took her turn at carrying the pack that contained their limited supplies, hoisted Shani's uninjured arm over her shoulders, and set off on her journey again.

Sometimes they talked about the weather.

"Why is it always raining on Omega XVI's moon?" "Someone's experiment went wrong and permanently disturbed its atmosphere. Makes shuttle rides rough, I'll tell you that much."

Or about home.

"What is it like, wherever you're from?" "It's...small. Blue and green. Everyone on it thinks they're the center of the universe, when really it's so much more than that."

Or even boys.

"I used to actually like Polin, before he, y'know, tried to kill me." "I haven't got anyone. Not yet, at least. Been too busy traveling."

Once, Martha asked her why she had looked like she had been crying earlier that morning. Shani studiously drew patterns in the dirt with a finger.

"I found out something horrible," she said.

"What is it?"

A single tear appeared on her cheek and Martha brushed it away for her.

"My parents... They are dead. Killed, last night, by rebels."

Martha gaped in shock, remorse, sympathy, whatever she could muck up in these barren Wastelands.

"I'm...I'm sorry. I didn't know. And you still went to _work_?"

Shani nodded. Her expression was remote.

"Yeah, needed the distraction. Look where that got me."

They got to the town before sunset. They were welcomed, taken to a hospital, and treated properly. Martha stared with some fascination at their medicines and instruments. She spent nearly an hour just trying to equate the difference between her world's aspirin and Omega XVI's most basic painkillers.

Eventually she worked up the courage to ask someone about Rose. No one claimed to have seen or heard of such a woman. The only thing Martha could think of doing was going to the Omega's palace, which, she assumed, was where Rose would go if she had survived.

She managed to contact the "mayor" of Kendle, a skinny black guy named Hive, and he told her the only way she was going to get from Kendle to the palace was either by walking or convincing someone to give her a ride in a hovercraft-type car they called a "landship". Martha really did not want to walk across the Wastelands again, for once was enough for a lifetime.

So that left her with just one option: hitchhiking.

Almost no one was willing to travel at night. When the sun set and Martha felt the temperature drop like a stone, she did not blame them. But that left her in a bit of a pickle.

"Let me go with you."

Martha sighed. She had gone to visit Shani, who was being released in two hours, to make sure she was all right. Shani almost had the full use of her previously dislocated arm and her leg wound had been treated with antibiotics and given nice new bandages; she could walk on it now, with a slight limp.

"Oh, come on. You saved my life!"

Martha shook her head. "Exactly. It's too dangerous. We don't even know what we're facing. We could run into a whole army of rebels or something just on the way to the palace!"

Shani nodded her head fervently. "Which is precisely why I need to go with you. You need protection."

Martha scoffed. "I can take care of myself."

Shani smirked shrewdly. "But do you have a means of getting to the palace yet?"

Martha avoided her eyes. "No."

"As an officer of the Court, I can commandeer the transportation you need. But not if you're not going to let me go with you."

Martha put her face in her hands and groaned.

Two hours later, after they were treated to some substantial hospital food, Shani threw some bundles into an orange jeep-like landship. "Just in case," she said. She drove and Martha held on for dear life, amazed at the speed they were going. The landship had no windows or roof, so the freezing night air whipped at them in a fury and Martha quickly lowered the goggles Shani had given her and huddled into her jacket. There were no discernible streets, no seatbelts, and, most importantly in Martha's eyes, no speed limit. But the stars were shining brighter than ever and the half moon to the east was bloomin' emerald and definitely a thing to look at.

They squeezed a couple hundred kilometers into fifty minutes, which Martha was _almost_ grateful for. The large city around the palace, Greeva, was more lively than Kendle. There was a small group of guards at the entrance, awaiting their arrival to take Martha and Rose to the Omega.

They were saddened to hear of Rose's likely death; Martha was disappointed to hear that Rose had not yet come to the palace. Shani insisted on joining the escort even though she was injured and they were thus both brought before Omega Black in his personal chambers. Martha found the whole place to be even more extravagant than Delta Garland's home in the Woodland City on the moon.

Martha tried not to give up hope. Rose could still be alive somewhere. It was possible that rebels, like Polin, were holding her captive. If that were the case, then Martha needed to find and rescue her as soon as possible. However, the Omega's health was a more pressing issue at the moment. If he died, the other Omegas would be sure to follow, and Martha had a bad feeling that if that happened, a revolution was going throw the Omega system into chaos. Martha prayed with everything she had that she knew something the doctors in the Omega system did not know and that she could help cure him.

Martha's vow to not give up hope was almost lost in despair upon entering Omega Black's quarters. He was a short, thin man of indeterminate age; he looked about two hundred and long buried. His skin was yellowed and leathery to the touch and his veins could be seen through it, green and pulsating with every slow beat of his heart. There were strange lumps on his limbs, and when Martha cautiously lifted the white bedsheet from his body, the lumps appeared on his very visible ribs as well. He had no hair left on his head and his eyelids were transparent. An awful stench like ten-year-old garbage permeated the entire room and Martha had to wrestle with her gag reflex in an effort to be polite.

Omega Black was hooked up to many machines which were whirring in some desperate attempt to prolong this man's almost certain death. Martha recognized an IV and a heart monitor and several scanning machines that she had asked about in Kendle's hospital.

A man in a white suit walked up to Martha and handed her some papers. Martha tore her eyes away from the man on the bed. Shani pulled up an ornate chair next to the bed and stared desolately at her leader.

"I'm Doctor Redfield, in charge of Omega Black's health. I hear you're here to help."

He had circles under his kind blue eyes and looked like Black's illness was draining him of life.

"Yeah, I'm, er, Martha Jones. Where I'm from, on Earth, I was studying to be a doctor. There might be something I can do." She sounded insincere even to her own ears. Nonetheless, Redfield nodded his head to the papers in her hand.

"Those are all the test results we have. X-rays, gamma scans, alpha reads, electromagnetic scanning, the works. Do you do any of that on, what was it? Earth?"

Martha nodded distractedly, looking over the papers. "Some of it, yeah. What's this, though?" She pointed to a sheet of paper with a maze of crisscrossing lines.

"Bloodwork, veins especial on that one. Standard check since the Death Sickness. Experts have told us that's not what this is, though."

"Yeah, I met him," Martha muttered.

Doctor Redfield didn't seem to know how to react to that. He said something about fetching some supplies that Martha might need and left. He looked quite ill himself, Martha thought.

She didn't like the readings at all. According to what she was reading, the man was in considerable pain and couldn't take hardly anything to relieve him of it. She could not see what she could possibly do that hadn't already been done. She wished like hell Rose was there to tell her what to do.

"Martha!" Shani exclaimed suddenly, looking alarmed. Martha dropped the files on a shiny oak coffee table. "He's awake!"

Omega Black's eyes were, in fact, black. Black as night and no whites at all. Martha found a set of basic nurse's supplies and grabbed a penlight to shine into Black's eyes. The Omega flinched from the light; Martha couldn't see any distinguishable pupil that may have dilated. She tossed the light away in disgust.

"Hello?" She tried. He blinked. "My name is Martha Jones. I'm here to help you. Can you tell me anything about what happened to you?"

He blinked again and then looked away from her and at Shani. Martha thought she saw recognition on his face.

"Lieutenant Shani Wells, sir."

"Wells," he whispered. Shani nodded, tears in her eyes. She covered her mouth and closed her eyes a moment before opening them carefully. The tears began falling silently down her cheeks.

"I knew your parents," he said hoarsely. The Omega's voice was so quiet they had to lean over him a little to hear. "Tr-tr..." He stopped and wheezed. Martha hated feeling helpless, she decided. "Traitors," he finally managed to gasp out.

Shani blanched. "Say what?"

"Your parents," he repeated, "Anthony-ny and M-Margaret Wellsssss," his breath hissed on the last syllable and he coughed again; "were tr-traitors. G-Gar-Garland had th-them exec-executed."

He dissolved into another coughing fit. Martha met Shani's shocked gaze.

"I was told my parents were killed by rebels," Shani mumbled stiffly.

Omega Black swallowed hard. "Lies," he rasped. "To pro-protect you from," he stopped to take a breath; his chest was heaving; "from the Reb-bell-bellion. They had – ," gasp; " – invaluable information for the rebels. Th-they pois-poisoned m-me and the oth-others. If – ," gasp; " – If yo-your par-parents told you anything, the rebels would d-do whatever wa-was necessary to get it from you."

Shani's tears were flowing freely now. "They never – I mean, I don't think, I don't think they ever said – "

"The Rebellion," Black continued softly, "plans to pu-put a new leader in our place, a vicious m-man by the name of Jethro. He has be-been known to hav-have killed thirty peo-people with his bare hands in one night. To give him pow-power, they must elim-eliminate the _entire_ Court."

"What do you mean?" Martha asked, since Shani seemed incapable of speaking.

Omega Black gave her a penetrating, searching glare. Apparently pleased with what he found, he said, "After the Omegas h-have died, the Deltas and the Alpha will be poisoned as well."

Martha gasped. "All those people!"

Black nodded gravely and coughed. "I will soon d-die, and Garland will take m-my place. Warn him. He does not kn-know, for I received thi-this information from a mo-most reliable s-source."

He turned his gaze very pointedly to Shani, who collapsed in her chair and covered her face with her hands, shuddering convulsively with silent sobs. Martha wished she could do something, _anything_ to make her feel better and end this nightmare. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Doctor Redfield return. He stood at the foot of the bed, uncomprehending of the entire situation. He looked back and forth between Martha and Shani warily.

"Anthony and Margaret Wells," Martha whispered almost reverently. Heroes, and the Omega system may never know it, condemning them as traitors forever. "But how will they do it? I mean, how do the rebels get around so easily and poison all these honchos? Haven't they – _you_ – got security?"

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Redfield stare at her in surprise.

"There are eyes and ears everywhere, Martha Jones," Omega Black whispered. She shivered to hear her name fall from the lips of a dead man.

They were his last words.

As the body was being taken care of, Doctor Redfield thanked her for at least being there and had a room set up for her in the palace. Shani left, eyes streaming, and Martha didn't know where she went. Martha attempted to get some shut-eye in her given quarters.

She couldn't hope for a restful sleep, although exhaustion tugged her eyes closed and darkness pressed in all around her. When she did sleep, the images behind her lids were so fraught with horror she wanted nothing more than to wake up. Rose's mangled body, Omega Black's last breath, an entire civilization in despair, Shani's tear-streaked face, Polin's manic betrayal, half-rotten heads lined up along a wall - the heads of her family. Guilt sucked at her stomach and made it a black hole; nausea forced her on her knees before an alien toilet spitting out acid and clutching her sides in pain.

She dreamed she was wandering the Wastelands forever, doomed to walk the dead world for eternity. Leafless trees transformed into people she knew. Her family, her mum especially, yelled at her to come home, leave all the alien nonsense behind and live her real, ordinary life. She hid herself under a strip of denim cloth and kept walking. A Rose-tree started trotting alongside her. A black cloud covered the sun and it began to rain. But the rain wasn't rain, it was hot, sticky blood, and the Rose-tree was skipping out ahead of her and dancing merrily in it, twirling about in circles and sticking her wooden tongue out to catch the little crimson droplets that stained Martha's hands. Martha laughed at her and continued to walk, always walking, never stopping, never looking back.

And as the Rose-tree danced upon her roots, other people emerged from the trees on either side of them. These people she did not recognize; they were complete strangers. But there were men, women, children, and weird little fuzzy blue things that shot skinny orange appendages at her legs to try and trip her up. They were yelling at her. She couldn't tell what they were saying, but it was clear they were accusing her of something. The blood pouring from the sky painted them all. One face she did recognize: it was Shani. She wasn't yelling like everyone else, she was just staring off into the distance with lifeless, diamond tears defeating the blood on her face. Polin came up behind her and put his arms around her waist. His eyes were black as night. Martha passed them without a second glance.

The TARDIS materialized ahead of her, wheezing a terrible hacking cough like the Omega clinging to the last threads of his life. Its blue wood was instantly stained by the pouring blood and a shadow opened the door. It was shaped like a man, but Martha had no idea who he was or what he looked like. He closed the TARDIS door and watched the Rose-tree dance. When they got close enough, he took Rose's hands and started dancing with her.

The last thing Martha saw before she woke up was the shuttle wreck and the shadow-man hanging out of it, and the bloodstained Rose-tree no longer dancing but sobbing instead, desperately, echoing of Shani, and leaning over the shadow-man as he died in her arms.

**ΘΣ ... ****ΘΣ**

"You're not listening!" Martha felt like tearing out her hair. "You. Are. Going. To. Be. _Poisoned_!"

"Preposterous," newly appointed Omega Garland sniffed pompously.

Martha actually had to muffle a frustrated scream. She hadn't even had breakfast yet and it was turning out to be one of _those_ days.

"This is from Omega Black himself!" She persisted stubbornly. She had her arms folded across her chest, but its effect and her acid glare were uselessly directed at Garland's back. "I've got it on the highest authority that the rebels are planning to kill you!"

"It's true, sir."

Martha swiveled to face Shani, who was standing in the doorway of the office appearing very tired. Martha empathized.

"Everything she's saying is true," Shani repeated. Her eyes were dull and voice little better. "The rebels want to put Jethro Yuri in absolute power. They've got spies, sir. Nowhere is safe."

Omega Garland considered them both from his post at the office's window overlooking the Wastelands. With a heavy, word-weary sigh, he pointed to a shiny black safe standing in one corner of the room. Martha hurried over to it. Garland rummaged in his desk for a piece of paper, wrote something on it, and tossed the paper, folded, to Martha, who opened it up to see a combination for the safe's lock. She looked incredulously at him and he made an impatient shooing gesture with his hands. Martha shrugged and entered the combination. The safe popped open and Martha peered inside it.

Rather than precious stones or jewelry as she would have normally expected, particularly given Garland's everyday attire, all she found was a small vial of liquid no larger than her pointer finger. She lifted it up into the light and squinted at the transparent blue liquid.

"What is it?" Shani asked.

"Since you must know," Garland glared at each of the women petulantly; "that is the antidote for the poison."

Martha and Shani both started talking loudly at once; Garland held up a hand to silence them.

"Before you ask why I had not informed you of its existence before, know that it did not exist until just a couple of hours before my arrival here. Your friend," he said to Martha, "is the one who devised the chief portion of it that no one else could figure out. All of the newly appointed Omegas, and the Alpha, have been given a vial in preperation for the attempted revolution that is to come. Never think that we are not prepared."

Martha was still stuck on "your friend". By the time he finished talking, she finally found her voice.

"Rose?" she asked, sounding strangled. "Rose is alive?"

"Yes, of course," he said, confused. "Were you not aware of this?"

Martha couldn't speak.

"No, sir," said Shani, "we didn't, but thank you for informing us now. When did Miss Tyler contact you?"

"Well, soon after it was reported that you had crashed, I suspect. Tragic incident," Garland said sorrowfully; "Polin's betrayal. I am very sorry that we had not detected his defection, or this all may have been prevented."

Martha looked at the vial in her hand. _Rose made this,_ her mind supplied helpfully, but she had trouble feeling anything beyond relief that Rose was alive.

"Where is she now?" Martha asked.

"I believe she remains in the Woodland City. However, I cannot be sure. I offered her a seat in my shuttle, but I think she had other plans. As I said, I cannot be sure."

Martha frowned.

"Maybe she went back to the TARDIS."

"Oh, no," said Garland, "I had the TARDIS secured aboard my shuttle. Your Rose agreed to it; in fact, she insisted on it, said you might need it for something. It is safe in this palace for now."

"But then," Martha was really confused now, "what could Rose need from the Woodland City?"

"I do not know," Garland admitted. "Perhaps she plans to stop the Rebellion from there, on her own."

That rang true with what Martha knew about Rose. Still, she had a rather funny feeling in the pit of her stomach that was telling her to question everything.

_There are eyes and ears everywhere, Martha Jones._

She narrowed her eyes at the antidote. Decisively, she pulled the cork out of it with a flourish. Shani gasped and Garland jerked as if to stop her, but Martha just held the vial's opening to her nose and sniffed. It smelled faintly like some strange, yet familiar, mixture of scrambled eggs, blueberries, and lavender. Martha's brows furrowed as she tried to remember where she had smelled something like that before.

Then her eyes widened. The Woodland City! The moon! The smell came from those trees and the rain and the grass; the antidote was a fake! Rose could not have possibly made it, she would never make an antidote unless she intended for it to honestly work. Which meant that the question of Rose's survival was still valid.

"Omega Garland," she said solemnly, "I regret to inform you that your antidote won't cure so much as nasal congestion, let alone that poison that got the other Omegas."

Garland appeared at first shocked, then hesitant, and finally smug. "And I fear you are mistaken, Miss Jones. Your Rose made that antidote, and I am very confident in her abilities."

"Really?" Martha said coldly. She corked the vial and threw it to him. Reflexively, he caught it. "Smell it. Tell me I'm wrong."

Omega Garland turned his nose up at her. "I have no need to 'smell' anything. This _is_ the antidote, and as soon as I am poisoned, I will use it and uncover all of the spies in this kingdom."

"Why would Rose stay in the Woodland City?" Martha pressed. "She's got nothing there. You took the TARDIS with you and now she has no way to get here, so why wouldn't she come here to start with? It doesn't make sense!"

"That box drives its pilots mad!" Garland snarled. "I've seen the proof of it once and here I've seen it again. Why should I hope to understand the motives of a madwoman?"

Martha shook her head. How could anyone be so blind?

"But she is not the one who made _that_." She jerked her head at the so-called antidote. "I know because she wouldn't make a fake and tell you that it would work, and that _is _fake. Go on, smell it. You can tell!"

But Omega Garland was having none of it. "Captain!" He called, and suddenly Darsum appeared at the door behind Shani, who reluctantly moved out of his way. Martha scowled at him. She did not have fond memories of Darsum.

"Yes, sir?"

"Just stand right there for now," Garland ordered him. Darsum's expression almost shifted to confusion before reverting to his soldier mask.

"Rose Tyler's fate is of no concern to us at the moment," said Garland to Martha. "You may return to the Woodland City to search for her, if that is your wish, and Captain Darsum will escort you there and help you. Or, you can make yourself useful and help us crush this Rebellion before it gets out of hand."

Martha glanced at Shani.

"Lieutenant Wells will remain here no matter what your choice is," Garland said as though reading her mind. "I will give you to the count of three to decide before Captain Darsum will be forced to subdue and incarcerate you; by force, if necessary."

When Shani opened her mouth to protest, he glared at her and she clenched her jaw but said nothing. Martha wished she'd own up to her individuality for once.

"One."

Martha was almost certain that Garland was lying about where he had gotten his "antidote", for Rose would never have made a fake.

"Two."

And if he was lying about that, he was probably lying about her being in the Woodland City. This was no certain thing, of course, and if she was wrong she would be abandoning her friend to fight a war on a side she didn't even know she belonged on.

"Three. Darsu –"

"All right!" Martha interrupted quickly, her heart pounding. "All right. I'll help you, if I can. But if Rose comes here..."

"You'll be informed as soon as possible." Garland assured her.

"Right. So what d'you need my help with?"

"You can start by telling me how to get into the blue box."

Martha laughed, relieved. "What, that's it? Sorry, but I can't help you with that. I don't have a key, and as far as I know, that's the only way to get in."

Garland frowned. "Search her."

Darsum immediately moved towards Martha.

"Oi!" Martha protested. "I said I don't have it!"

Darsum patted her down anyway. He searched the pockets of her jeans, even the back ones, which earned a slap on the hands from Martha, and then felt around her neck for a chain. He even checked her jacket and then opened her jacket to see if it had inside pockets, which it didn't. The only thing he found was her cell phone, which was promptly given back to her. Then Darsum glared pointedly at her feet.

"Remove them."

Martha blinked. "What?"

"I suggest you do as he says, Miss Jones."

Martha glared heatedly at Garland and yanked off her shoes and socks with more fervor than was strictly necessary. Darsum checked them and, finding both shoes and socks empty, handed them back. Martha pulled them back on, cursing the existence of men under her breath.

Darsum leered at her.

"I don't suppose you might be hiding it elsewhere?"

Martha raised an eyebrow at him disbelievingly. "I dare you to find out, _Captain_."

But Darsum only chuckled and faced Omega Garland. "She's clean, sir."

Garland looked resigned. "Very well, Miss Jones. In that case, I must enlist your services as a doctor. I expect a war, and it will very likely be bloody. I want all the medics we can get at the ready." His eyes roved her body from head to toe. Martha blushed with outrage. "You seem very athletic. I'll probably send you into the field when the fighting starts, so I suggest you rest up and be prepared. Understood?"

Martha gritted her teeth and forced her self to say, with no bars on sarcasm, "Yes, _sir_."

Omega Garland smiled smugly, victorious. Martha wanted more than anything else in that moment to slap that expression off his face.

"Good. Dismissed. Wells, stay. Captain, you may go."

Martha turned on her heel and marched out before Darsum could attempt to catch up and start some kind of conversation that would only end with her foot up his arse.

* * *

**Big thanks to_ Trisya-Rogan-Draegalia_ for reminding me that I left you guys at a horrible cliff-hanger. And I sort of did it again, didn't I? But don't worry, I promise to update again soon, probably by Friday. Thanks for all the support, everyone!**

**P.S. The newest ep, _The Doctor's Wife_ gave me a couple of ideas about how to proceed with Rose's transformation. It's actually kinda interesting, even if fan fiction is generally a waste of time. Wasting time is a happy thing in which to indulge, though.**


	8. Stars and Scars Part II

**Episode Four  
****Stars and Scars, Part II**

Rose hated politics.

"All right, fine," said Rose, throwing her arms up in the air; "if you're not going to listen to me, take me to your leader. Maybe he'll see sense."

After her arrival at the rebel base on Omega XVI, they had knocked her out. When she woke up hours later, the rebels had changed their tune and, seeing her as a potential ally, had given her the grand tour and informed her of their goals. Rose didn't mind a little revolution, but she heartily disagreed with their methods. It was better, she thought, to have a few bored democrats than to have dozens of people killed. Theo, Rick, Jeff, Freya, and Alice, the rebels she'd been faced with when the escape pod had crashed, were of the mind that assassination was the path of least violence and the only course of action the rebels could take. She'd been arguing with them for two hours.

Polin shrugged. "Can't guarantee that the President will want to see you, though. He keeps his identity secret from everyone. We have too many spies that could be compromised, after all."

"Great!" Rose said enthusiastically. "I want to meet this mystery man an' give him a piece of my mind. Have you sent anyone after my friend yet like I told you to?"

Alice rolled her eyes. "We're a little short on people, in case you haven't noticed. We have two teams this size on Omega XVI and this is our largest base of operations. All our agents are in place and undercover, ready to administer the poison. And it's dark out, you know."

"Then go yourself," Rose hissed, fed up with the way the world was treating her today. "She was in a shuttle and that idiot," she thrust a thumb in Polin's direction, "crashed it. I'm not giving up hope that she survived until I've seen her body for myself. I have _more_ idiots to deal with so I can't go myself right now. An' what are you actually _doing_ here, anyway?"

Rick gestured to the computer banks around them; Rose had been taken underground to find a small military-like base built underneath the desolate sands they called the Wastelands.

"We're the contacts for all of our agents across the system. All communications are constantly monitored by a day team and a night team. All findings are reported to other agents and to the President, who is usually housed elsewhere but for the duration of this operation it's better for him to remain here."

"What, an' you don't even know who he is?" said Rose incredulously. "You jus' follow his orders, no question, just 'yes, sir' to a shadow?"

"We do question his orders sometimes, though," Freya interrupted. "We're trying to build a democracy. All team leaders have the right to conference with the President personally if there is an issue to be had. That's the whole point, you know. Getting rid of an alliance of dictators. No one should be able to rule a world so completely as the Omegas do, and the Alpha just sits back and lets them have their way with things. It's not right."

"But is it right to kill your own people? You _can _overthrow a government without bloodshed, you know. I've seen it done before!"

They all looked at her strangely. A steady beep from one of the computers drew the rebels' attention away from Rose.

"It's time," Jeff announced excitedly. "Our agents are moving in. It's starting!"

"Where's the President?" Rose demanded fiercely. She had to convince someone to stop this nonsense before it was too late.

"This way," said Polin as the other rebels took their seats at the communications console.

Rose followed him down a concrete flight of stairs and into a long, dark hallway. They hurried to a thick steel door with a submarine-like latch at the end of the hall. Polin rapped on it with his knuckles.

"Rose Tyler to see you, sir!"

The muffled voice a middle-aged man called, "Send her in!"

Polin looked curiously at Rose as though surprised at his leader's prompt reply. Then he merely shrugged and spun the latch open. He pulled on the door and it made a horrible screeching noise as it parted from its frame. Rose nodded to him in thanks and stepped into the dimly lit room.

There was a long leather sofa all along one wall and a large black desk to the far left side. There were royal blue rugs covering the dull gray concrete of the floor and a stone brazier hanging from the ceiling illuminated the room with an ethereal whitish-blue glow. Rose recognized the Everlasting Fire.

A bald man with a big brown mustache and a potbelly lounged in a recliner to Rose's right. There was a large box beside his chair and a smaller table in front of him. On the table was a thin metal box from which projected an image of the room Rose had just left. Freya was pacing and Theo, Jeff, Rick and Alice were intently studying their computer screens. As she watched, Polin rejoined them.

"Rose Tyler, eh? I've heard a bit about you," the man spoke but did not look up from the projection.

"They've said it's starting," said Rose. "Have you been watching this whole time?"

"You mean since you were dragged in like a stray cat?" He had a bit of humor about him. Rose was not amused. "Yes."

"Then you know what I have to say to you, Mister so-called President. What you're having these people do is _wrong_."

"It's the only thing left for us to do."

"Then don't do anything!" Rose practically exploded.

The President laughed. "That is what I have done for far too long, Miss Tyler."

He reached into the box beside his chair and pulled from it a bottle of orange liquid. "Care for some orange juice?" He offered. Rose shook her head in disbelief.

"People are out there dying because of you, an' you're just sittin' here drinking _juice_!"

"Is that a no?"

Rose sighed. She walked over to the sofa and plopped herself down on it without ceremony or grace.

"Who are you, anyway? What's your real name?"

"Jethro Yuri is my name, although that does not mean much to you."

Rose shook her head, surprised he was so forthcoming. "Nope. Never heard of you. What makes you so important, Jethro Yuri?"

Jethro finally looked at her. "You lied to Darsum and Garland," he accused calmly. Rose narrowed her eyes suspiciously. "You said you are no friend of the Doctor. And yet you bear his mannerisms so well."

Rose sat up. "What? What are you talking about? Did you know the Doctor?"

Jethro chuckled. "Know him? Oh yes, I knew him. He was a great friend of mine, many years back. He assured me my place in society."

"What did he look like?"

Jethro shrugged. "Romantic. Velvet suit, wavy hair. Does it matter?"

"What d'you mean, he assured your place in society?"

Jethro smiled. "What, clever girl like you, you can't figure it out?"

Rose frowned at him.

"Why do you need to keep your identity secret from the other rebels, anyway? You must be well known to them already, or it wouldn't matter."

"Getting warmer. Keep going."

"If they know you, and you still have to hide, that means they're under the impression that your public face should actually be fighting against them."

"Ooh, you're _burning_. Do go on."

Rose scowled at his patronizing tone.

"If there's no doubt in their minds that you should be fighting the rebels, you must be an important figure in the Omega System, high up, like the Omegas. Upstairs, Freya told me that the Omegas were like an alliance of dictators an' the Alpha jus' lets them get away with everything. But he doesn't actually have a choice, does he, the Alpha? He's outnumbered. And _you_ just said that you haven't been doin' anything before now to bring them down."

She looked President Jethro Yuri straight in the eye. "How ironic," she said with a voice that drooled sarcasm, "that the leader of the Rebellion should be none other than the Alpha himself."

Jethro laughed too loudly and clapped his hands together with enthusiasm.

"Bravo, Miss Tyler! Bravo! You _must_ be a companion of the Doctor's. Tell me, where is he now?"

Rose coldly observed him from her perch on the sofa and ignored his question.

"How long have you let your power go to your head?" she spat at him. "'Cos I know the Doctor would never have considered _you_ a friend."

Jethro's grin faded slightly. "No, no, you've got this all wrong. I'm not doing any of this for _me_!"

"Could've fooled me." Rose crossed her arms over her chest.

Jethro put a hand to his chest, mock-wounded. "You hurt me, Miss Tyler. I hate everything my office stands for! I'm even willing to suffer to get rid of it, see?"

He reached into his purple vest and pulled out a syringe filled with clear liquid. He chucked it at Rose, who plucked it easily from the air and held it up to her eyes.

"What is this?"

"The poison," he said as though it should be obvious. "My friends here told you the plan: the former Deltas and myself are next in line for assassination; the poison has been improved, though, and we're supposed to die much quicker than our late Omegas had. Of course, I don't plan to actually die, just make the general public believe that I have died. No Alpha, no Omegas, no Deltas; no more dictators. My agents will set up a temporary democracy and the people will decide what they want to do with themselves. The simplest solution to the most complex of problems, I daresay."

Rose threw the syringe back to him, horrified. "And how exactly do you plan on surviving that?" She nodded at the poison pointedly.

"My friend and right-hand man, Captain Darsum, was kind enough to provide for me an antidote to his wondrous masterpiece."

"Darsum made the poison!" Rose exclaimed incredulously. "And you trust him! Did you know that he's all buddy-buddy with Garland, then?"

Jethro looked insulted. "Of course I knew that, I told him to be. The Omega of Omega XVI always has the most influence amongst them all, it's why the Rebellion built its operations here."

"Darsum is a double agent?" Rose remarked, feeling like her head had just been twisted like a wet rag. "Don't you politicians ever learn to _never_ trust a double agent?"

"Darsum is perfectly trustworthy," Jethro defended. He reached into his vest pulled out a vial full of clear blue fluid. "His poison will purge the galaxy of evil."

Rose stood and took the vial from him. Something about it didn't sit right with her.

"Don't trust him," she said suddenly. "From one friend of the Doctor's to another, please listen to me. Darsum cannot be trusted."

Jethro shrugged almost carelessly, although his eyes did appear worried. "It doesn't matter if he is trusted or not, to be honest. We need him. His position at Omega Garland's side is invaluable. There, he has influence over the people. He can sway them into being more accepting of all that we are offering. The System will stand behind Darsum and he will lead them on the right path."

Rose was stricken; she paled and swallowed. "And if Darsum decides he wants it all for himself?"

Jethro laughed nervously.

"Don't be ridiculous, Rose. I've known Darsum for many years, ever since he was Omega Black's advisor. Darsum is as passionate about creating a democracy here as any of us in the Rebellion."

Rose met his eyes. "Is he, though?"

Jethro looked away and said nothing. Rose gazed into the vial in her hand and bit her lip. She uncorked the vial and sniffed its contents gingerly. Her eyes widened.

"President Yuri!" Rose almost dropped the vial; she quickly pushed the cork into it with her thumb and faced the man who had appeared in the doorway. It was Darsum; the door closed behind him with a heavy clunk. He stopped short when he came into the room and saw Rose there. "Er, am I interrupting something?"

Rose saw his eyes dart to the vial she still held in her hand. A flash of fear crossed his face before he hid it smoothly.

"Not at all, Captain," said Jethro easily. "Was there something you needed? Or do you have news?"

Darsum was looking at Rose when he addressed the President. "News, sir. Martha Jones came to the Omega's palace late last night and witnessed Omega Black's death. She has agreed to serve as a medic for Omega Garland, sir."

Rose was too relieved to care if Martha had gone on a killing spree; at least she was alive.

"And the other?" Rose asked him. "Shani Wells? Did she survive?"

Darsum's left eye twitched but he inclined his head respectfully. "Yes ma'am, she did. But as they are both fighting against the Rebellion at this time, I hardly think that should come as a relief."

Rose refrained from hitting him. Barely.

"That's enough, Darsum," Jethro scolded. "Was there anything else?"

"Yes, sir. It seems that Martha Jones and Shani Wells have somehow become aware of our plans. Luckily, Omega Garland did not seem to believe them when they attempted to warn him fifteen minutes ago."

Jethro frowned and pulled at his mustache. "Yes, that is worrisome. Did the ladies mention how they came by this information?"

"It was said by Jones that Omega Black was her source, sir. How Black may have come by it, I have not yet discovered."

"Jethro," Rose called his attention to her. She pulled the cork off the vial again and handed it to him quickly. "Take a whiff of this."

Darsum's eyes opened wide with fear.

Suspicious but deciding to trust Rose, Jethro lifted the vial to his nose.

Darsum used the distraction to pull out his gun. Jethro was too busy realizing that his antidote was fake to notice, but Rose did. She had an instant to react and none to think; Darsum took aim at Jethro and Rose impulsively threw herself in front of him.

Objectively, she would have expected the sizzling ball of fire that came at her to travel the distance from Darsum's gun to her stomach in slow motion, as though in a movie. She would have expected to see her short but busy life flash before her eyes in segments; childhood, Jimmy Stone, the Doctor, post-Battle, and Martha. She would have expected to feel regret at all the things she had never done.

The ball tore through the tender flesh of her ambdomen less than half a second after she had jumped in front it, and it felt like just that long or less as she clutched the smoking hole with both hands and fell numbly to her knees. The only things she could see were Darsum's malicious, glinting eyes and the only thing she could feel, after a few startled seconds, was pain.

There was no blood. The blast had cauterized the wound completely, leaving her insides to decay in the dark. Boiling, bubbling acid bubbled from her stomach and began to lick at other organs. She felt herself melting away as though in a dream; she was in so much pain she could not scream.

_Oh, stop their frantic hearts! Poor, fragile mortals._

She lost the strength to stay upright even on her knees and fell gracelessly onto her side with a silent gasp for air that never came to her lungs.

There were sounds of a struggle through the roaring in her ears; Jethro and Darsum were fighting. Jethro had disarmed Darsum and now they fought hand-to-hand. Rose watched them as she lay dying, for there was nothing else to look at in her misery.

Jethro threw a kick that was effortlessly blocked and Darsum punched him in the gut; Jethro wheezed and doubled over. Before Darsum could take advantage, Jethro threw his shoulder forward and tackled Darsum to the ground. They wrestled for several minutes until Darsum, younger, faster, and better built for fighting, gained the upper hand and drew a knife from his boot. Rose wanted to close her eyes so she wouldn't see, but in her last moments she did not want to be deprived of any sight, so it was with great horror that she watched Darsum stab Jethro viciously in the chest and then cruelly twist the knife.

Jethro cried out in pain. Darsum laughed with exhilaration at his victory, retrieved his gun, and left the room without another glance behind him.

Rose was facing Jethro. He wasn't dead just yet, just as she was not. His eyes flicked downward and Rose followed his gaze to see his limp hand holding the syringe of poison he had been going to use on himself, now emptied. She looked at Jethro's face again and he smiled at her as he breathed his last breath.

Rose breathed through her own nose and wished her death would come that fast. She was starting to get used to the pain, although it seemed to escalate with every second that passed. She felt hot, burning as though with fever, and the acid seemed to have spread to cover every inch of her body; her skin tingled with pent-up energy.

She realized what was going to happen a second before it did and managed to climb to one knee before throwing her head back and exploding into flame.

When the fire receded, Rose fell to the floor, unconscious. Her straight bottle-blonde hair had reverted to its natural wavy brunette and all makeup had been washed away from her face, which remained unchanged. Where the wound on her stomach had been was now just a hole in her clothing; the skin beneath was silky smooth and miraculously intact. Her first breath since death released a fine golden mist into the air.

**ΘΣ ... ****ΘΣ**

"You did this!"

"What?"

"You! And that good-for-nothing Lieutenant!"

Martha had no idea what to think. She had been pulled from her first breakfast in ages by a burly guard who needed more deodorant and brought before Omega Garland in his office to face an accusation from which she had no idea how to defend herself.

"You spent many minutes alone with Omega Black, I have no doubt you caused his death, too!"

Martha's jaw dropped. _What?_

"Hey!" Martha's head revolved to find Shani shaking off another grunt. "What the hell are you doing, Sergeant? I'll have your ass bumped so far down the chain for this you'll never see the light day if you hope to get more pay!"

Shani was pushed in and forced to sit in a chair before Garland's desk. Garland held up an empty vial and dangled it in front of Martha's nose. Then he spun around and threw it against a wall, where it shattered with such force bits of glass managed to shoot towards Martha's face. Martha had a really bad feeling about what was going to happen next.

"It's _your_ fault it's not working!"

He was crazed, manic, panicked, and Martha flinched from his glare. His skin had begun to take on a suspiciously yellowish hue and Martha could just make out the faint outlines of greenish-blue veins in his hands, neck, and face. Suddenly he cried out in pain and clutched his stomach.

Then he looked up and with determined fervor and spat, "You did something! Both of you, working together, you must have! You're traitors! All from that damned box, causing wars, killing people – you probably assassinated the Alpha in his bed!"

Martha glanced at Shani, who looked just as dumbfounded as she felt. The Alpha was dead? Garland had already been poisoned? He was blaming the fake antidote on _them_?

"I'll have your heads for what you've done to the Royal Court, you _filth_!" Garland was positively seething, almost foaming at the mouth, and Martha had half a mind to run. But then he snapped his fingers and a guard grabbed her from behind, rendering her helpless to his mercies. "To the gallows! I'll be having this on system-wide broadcast, so all the worlds can see what you two have done to the people of Omega!"

Martha and Shani were forced to march out the door and through the palace to the green, lively courtyard below. They exchanged panicked looks. Gallows? They were going to be executed!

They both struggled to get free, both with varying degrees of failure; Martha ended up with a bloody nose and a deep cut across one eyebrow for her trouble and Shani twisted her ankle and reopened the wound in her thigh. Neither succeeded in escaping.

When they got to the courtyard, Martha was terrified to find that two platforms had already been set up and the courtyard doors had opened to the public; a huge crowd was spilling in and surrounding the platforms.

Martha had never been so afraid in her life as she was in the moment a man tightened a noose around around her neck.

**ΘΣ ... ****ΘΣ**

Darsum panted as he ran from the rebel base. He had very little time, he felt. Around him, the trees twisted as though laughing at him, mocking him, shivering with mirth. Many of them even appeared to have faces.

He tripped over something and fell face-first into the dust. He rubbed grit from his eyes and looked up, then stumbled backwards in fear. The Alpha, a knife sticking out of his chest, was advancing menacingly upon him. Darsum blinked and the Alpha disappeared.

He snickered at himself and pushed up to his feet. The very ground seemed to pull at his muscles, wearying him. He could not run.

A boulder jumped out at him from nowhere and Darsum knocked his shins against it. He howled in pain and crawled away from it.

A tree to his left began to look a lot like Doctor Redfield, the man who had taken credit for Darsum's invention of the Sickness vaccine, from which Darsum had derived his poisons. Darsum felt a fury such as he had never felt since the day he had been booted to the Royal Guard. He rose to his feet and rushed at Redfield, snarling with rage. His shoulder slammed into the dead tree and he bounced backward and landed on his back, out of breath.

Garland! He suddenly thought. Garland would be sure to tell everyone everything, the fucking coward! All of Darsum's plans would come crashing down around his ears, and all his years of preparation would fail! If Garland hadn't been so obsessed with eradicating all traces of the war and the Doctor and that stupid box, Martha Jones and Rose Tyler would be dead and he could be left to rule the Omega System in peace.

Darsum forced himself to his feet again. Above him, a black cloud covered the sun and it began to rain. The rain was hot and sticky but it felt good on Darsum's skin and as he ran through it and his entire body was bathed in crimson all he could think of was Garland and his thin but succulent neck, just asking to be sliced wide open.

That bastard. He would pay for revealing all their plans just because the antidote Darsum had given him to garner his favor was fake. He would fucking _pay_.

**ΘΣ ... ****ΘΣ**

_Streams of gold ebbed around in her in the black. She was everywhere, watching everything._

_A thread twined carefully around her fingers, arms, neck, and finally her heart; and Rose smiled when from it she heard emanate the warmth of Martha's voice._

_Elsewhere, another thread pulsed brightly, catching her eye. Rose decided to swoop down and investigate._

_It was somehow wrapped very tightly around a big, fat stream with chaotic rushing waters. As she followed the length of the thread, the stream calmed itself and began to flow smoothly, peacefully._

_Intrigued, Rose dipped a finger into the stream. Her senses were immediately assaulted by a sense of a culture almost as old as time, a culture that was dying. But where the stream was calm, the culture was more alive and vibrant than it had ever been in the past._

_Rose snagged the thread with two fingers and peered at it intently at the point the waters began to calm._

"_Unless we band together, we _will_fall apart. Everything we are, everything we could be will become nothing more than a meaningless memory. Is that what you want for our future? Is that what you want for the lives you will lead? The very men who tore all the choices you've ever had from your fingertips are the same men who lie dead on their gaudy thrones. The choice has now been given back to you, and what you decide will determine the fate of Omega. Choose, citizens of Omega, and ensure that your children, and their children, and their children after that, will have hope! Let us leave behind what has broken our wings and may we to learn fly again! For as a wise woman once told me, a dream cannot come true if you do not even dare to dream it."_

Rose gasped as she awoke. Confusion logged her brain down as she experienced a feeling she had not felt for some time; grogginess. She shook it from her head and rubbed her crusty eyes. When she managed to look around her at the rebel infirmary, at first all she could see were streams of gold. Then she blinked and she was seeing sterile white beds.

Her hand brushed her stomach as she threw off the sheet that was covering her and she looked down in fascination at the singed hole in her jumper. Luckily, she had taken off her jacket in the communications room and left it there, so it should be intact.

She hopped off the bed with the intention of hunting for said jacket. She frowned when a bright, pulsating golden thread suddenly appeared, tied around her right index finger, trailing in defiance of gravity at the height of her waist to the infirmary door and beyond. She stared at the thread as though it had insulted her.

Finally, she shrugged and decided to follow it. To her relief, it lead her to the communications room, which was where she had wanted to go anyway. She stopped in the doorway to see where the thread would lead to next and was surprised to see it disappear into one of the computer screen monitors, around which six rebels were crowded and staring intently. They didn't seem to notice the thread at all.

Rose walked up behind them and watched the screen over their shoulders. Omega Garland was on some kind of news broadcast with his courtyard, filled with hundreds of people, as his background. He wasn't looking too awfully perky; Rose suspected that the poison was very near to killing the poor man. After every sentence, he wheezed harshly.

"_I stand before my esteemed citizens of the Omega System today to bring you wonderful news of justice this morning. Two perpetrators were caught pouring lethal poison into my morning orange juice; as you see me before you now, I am dying and will soon join our revered Omegas in the afterlife._

"_But do not feel as though you have been kept in the dark about the extent of the danger the Rebellion poses to our grand and industrial commonwealth, for it is only very recently that we have managed to capture those barbaric traitors on whom all blame should be justly placed. It is them who have prolonged the war we thought ended so long ago. It is them who decay the roots of our existence!_

"_In merely a score of minutes, you, my people, shall be privy to witness the event of the traitors' execution in my own palace."_

The camera shifted from Garland's solemn, unhealthy face and to his courtyard. The camera zoomed in, past the voluminous crowd, until finally it focused on two wooden platforms. On each platform stood two humanoid figures, one standing bound by rope under a hangman's noose, and the other the executioner who would release the plank that held the victims' lives in check.

The camera zoomed in further until the faces of the "traitors" could be seen very clearly.

Rose's heart stopped in her chest for the second time that morning.

"Son of a bitch," she whispered.

The rebels jumped as one and spun in unison to face her, looking shaken. Rose wasn't paying them any attention. Her face was pale, intent only on the two faces that, in that particular moment, were the two most important faces in the universe. The golden thread still tied around her finger was running from the spool of it that was Shani Wells on-screen. She and Martha Jones looked positively terrified. Around them, the crowd was jeering and cheering so loudly the camera could pick up every word of their unjust rage.

"Son of a _bloody_ bitch!"

The rebels didn't seem to know what to make of her. Rose spun around and took a deep breath, trying and failing to hide from their stares. She saw her jacket and hastily threw it on, zipping it up over the crisp hole in her shirt.

"Right," she said, enforcing her voice with deadly calm. "Get all your agents on the line: tell them to secure the Omegas. If you've got any in Garland's palace, tell them to secure a route for us to him. _Do not_ let anyone interfere. Freya, Theo, you stay here and do that. Everybody else, you're with me. Martha Jones and Shani Wells _cannot_ die, have you got that?"

They stared at her, gobsmacked. Rose grabbed her sonic screwdriver and pointed it at the monitor; sparks flew from the screen asit blew out, startling the rebels into action.

"_Move_!"

**ΘΣ ... ****ΘΣ**

On Omega planets I through XVI, billions of people happily watched the morning news and angrily cheered on Omega Garland. In a matter of minutes, Martha Jones and Shani Wells became the most hated women in the Omega System.

But as these people watched so ardently for the deaths of women they did not know, the tide turned in favor of another party. When it happened, the camera was focused on Omega Garland where he sat comfortably on a hastily-erected throne high above the traitors and the crowd.

A rather well-known man by the name of Darsum Black, grandson of the late Omega Black, appeared behind Omega Garland and, without anyone there to stop him, pointed his Fireball Z720 at the back of Garland's head.

"_Everything Omega Garland has told you is a lie!"_

The crowd began to panic. Viewers of the broadcast gasped and screamed and hid behind their hands. Darsum appeared to be in even worse shape than the Omega with his sallow skin and bulging veins.

"_Jones and Wells are not the traitors here, he is! He is the fabled leader of the Rebellion, President Jethro Yuri, in disguise! It is his fault so many of our own people have come to harm!"_

Garland looked as though he were already dying, so great was his fear. _"No!"_ He yelled at the camera. _"It's - that's not true!"_

Darsum nudged the back of his head with the Fireball and he obligingly fell silent.

"_It is,"_ Darsum said to the people, pausing to cough blood into his free hand. _"This man is responsible for the assassination of sixteen Omegas _and_ our Almighty Alpha king, including my own grandfather! The next generation of Omegas are next! He was going to fake his death and rise from the dead as your new king! Is this who we would have for the leader of our people? A murderer? A vile power-grubbing liar?"_

Spectators who were there and those watching from a great distance alike began to cheer on Darsum Black. Yeah! Who wants a leader like that! Kill him!

Darsum, however, was now having much greater difficulty stringing his words together. Garland, who was also dying and now suffering from shock, could not seem to speak at all.

"_Y-You see me before you?" _Darsum coughed violently and blood dripped from his mouth, splattering everywhere. His voice was hoarse and cracking. _"This is the work of a madman! This – this is what Omega Garland has done to me! I, too, have been poisoned for dis-discovering the TRUTH!"_

The crowd booed Garland as though this would help Darsum recover his health.

"_It is with great pleasure that I give you today the ultimate justice of the Omega System! The death of a traitor who, with no regard for the happiness of the people, destroyed all that we hold dear! Behold, my people, the hand of God!"_

And Darsum Black pulled the trigger at point-blank range, leaving a smoking stump of a neck where Omega Garland's head had once been. Darsum collapsed soon after, wheezing hopelessly.

**ΘΣ ... ****ΘΣ**

Rose and her team did not make it to the palace in time to save Garland from having his head blown off. Rose gritted her teeth and ordered Jeff and Rick to secure Darsum. She and Alice freed Martha and Shani while Polin stood guard with several agents who had since revealed themselves, holding back the boisterous crowd who were going wild with confusion and anger.

"Lieutenant Shani Wells!" Rose called over the noise. Shani, rubbing her wrists and rolling her recently freed neck on her shoulders, looked up. Rose was standing on her platform watching the thread tied around her finger pulse madly. It alternated from threatening to freeze and break to burning too brightly for Rose's eyes to bear.

When Shani was close enough, Rose started to frantically talk to her. Behind Rose, Martha forced her way through the crowd and under the guards' arms. "Shani, listen to me. These people have no leader. They're broken, and they need guidance before this – ," she gestured to the yelling crowd, " – becomes unstoppable."

Shani, however, looked desolate and beyond assurance. "What am I supposed to do? Everyone is dead!"

"Exactly!" Rose yelled at her. "Darsum would have been next in line after the Omegas and the Alpha died, but he's dying too. You're his second in command!"

Shani shook her head fervently. "No way! I'm not – I mean, I can't talk to all those people! They'd never listen!"

Martha came up to Rose's side. "You don't have a choice, Shani! Remember how I told you would make a great leader, if only you had nothing holding you back? Well, here you are. Nothing in your way. Your people need you!"

"But I _can't_!" Shani cried desperately. "There's nothing I can do! I haven't the words to calm them, just look!"

Rose and Martha looked out over the people gathered in the courtyard. Violence was starting to ensue. They exchanged anxious glances.

"Shani," Martha reached out and took her hand. "Remember how you said that being a guard was more adventurous than anything else you can do? Well, look around you, at your people. Just imagine what an adventure it would be to pioneer a whole new government, one that lets people do what they want without hurting anyone else. Imagine, Shani, what you can do to help them!"

Shani sniffed and looked away.

"Why me?"

Rose smiled and took her other hand.

"Because you _can_."

**ΘΣ ... ****ΘΣ**

The people watching the news across the system still had tears of anger and sadness in their eyes when a young Lieutenant appeared in front of the camera. She carefully lifted what was left of Omega Garland from his throne and handed the body to a dark-haired man. The man reverently placed Garland upon the green earth and bowed his head over him, crossing his chest with the symbol of death.

"_Please,"_ said the Lieutenant, and the solar system held its breath; _"Please take a moment of silence to honor our fallen. From the Time War, which took so many of our brothers and sisters, and from recent days in which our revered leaders were felled so horribly by greed and madness. Silence."_

Perhaps most amazing, of all the events to occur that day or any day before that, was how dutifully the citizens of Omega, no matter how angry or confused, bowed their heads and whispered prayer to their fallen when told to do so. For almost three whole minutes, not a baby screamed, not a soul sniffed nor a heart cried, not a sound was made in the whole of the Omega solar system.

Only the Lieutenant, of all those billions of people, was allowed to break the silence, for she was the one who'd called it.

"_Thank you,"_ she said finally._"Thank you, all of you, for your mourning. This is a day to build on for tomorrow from the dreams we carried on our backs all through yesterday. Remember this, this scar upon our history, for a scar is only a letter away from being a star."_

The Lieutentant sniffed a little as one corner of her lips struggled to rise at the facetiousness of her last statement and failed. She'd sounded as though she were quoting a nursey rhyme; and, in fact, she was - a nursery rhyme many residents of the system had heard as children. A tear fell from the Lieutenant's cheek and dripped onto the ground where she stood. The camera never wavered from her face.

"_My name is Lieutenant Shani Wells. My parents were Anthony and Margaret Wells. As Delta, Tero Garland had had them executed for acts which could have been considered treasonous at the time but which now may very well save who we are. I know that many of you will not agree, but I fear we cannot return to the traditions of our ancestors. The Old Ways will not work with the evolution and growth of the Omega people. We must deviate from who we were and move on to who we are, and that is Omegan. _Long live Omega!_"_

The thunderous cheers and applause of Omegans followed Shani Wells' speech. When they quieted enough for her to speak again, it was a moving piece which no amount of writing or other preparing could ever have done justice.

"_I propose for the purposes of creating a more permanent governing body a temporary democracy which may meet in congress everyday until the issue of our future is resolved. Representatives from every province on every planet will take part and discuss what is to be done. I cannot impress upon the citizens of Omega enough the gravity of the quandary in which we have found ourselves._

"_Unless we band together, we _will _fall apart. Everything we are, everything we could be will become nothing more than a meaningless memory. Is that what you want for our future? Is that what you want for the lives you will lead? The very men who tore all the choices you've ever had from your fingertips are the same men who lie dead on their gaudy thrones. The choice has now been given back to you, and what you decide will determine the fate of Omega. Choose, Omegans, and ensure that your children, and their children, and their children after that, will have hope! Let us leave behind what has broken our wings and may we learn to fly again! For as a wise woman once told me, a dream cannot come true if you do not even dare to dream it."_

* * *

**TBC in the Furyism production of _What It Means To Be Human_!**


	9. What It Means To Be Human, Part I

**Episode Five  
****What It Means To Be Human, Part I**

Rose remembered very clearly what it felt like to burn. Not just the weird half-regeneration she did on Omega XVI when she was shot by a guy with a god complex, and not just the cellular decomposition of holding the whole of creation in her head; but real, physical burning. It hadn't hurt. No, she had been pretty much burned to a crisp, destroying all the nerve endings that made it possible to feel pain. She was lucky to have been on a planet with extremely advanced medical technology or she never would have survived; or perhaps she would have, she thought with hindsight, for she may have simply half-regenerated or whatever it was she had done on Omega XVI.

It was before she met Martha but after she had lost the Doctor to her pseudo-father's universe. She'd easily lost track of time so couldn't say exactly how long ago it was (although the TARDIS would probably tell her if Rose cared to ask), but she did remember _where_ it was. On the planet Egna in the Galaxy of Fortitude, earthyear nine thousand, six hundred and ninety-six. The Egnarans were clinging to the last vestiges of their life in the universe, just barely hanging on by a thread. Food was scarce and fuel dangerous to come by. It was the failed quest of many to rid the world of power shortage and hunger.

The Egnarans Rose had met were using unpredictable devices called sonic microfield manipulators to destabilize rhiannon ore. This unstable ore released radiation that was lethal to the Egnarans but which provided a virtually unlimited power source given they never ran out of the ore; and on Egna there was plenty of rhiannon ore to be found.

Rose had been nowhere near the factory when an Egnaran by the name of Keshua broke in and stole one of the manipulators. However, it had been little work for the TARDIS to locate a sonic device apart from the others of its kind. Rose tracked down Keshua only to witness the most common fruit-bearing plant on Egna, called 'estam', mutate into a man-eating plant that promptly, well, ate Keshua.

Keshua, the Egnarans explained to Rose, had attempted something no one had dared to try before because of the sonic microfield manipulators' unpredictability. Somehow, and Rose never really understood this part, he destabilized the estam's genes and tried to make them _better_, only he made a mistake and the whole plan backfired.

In the end, Rose had to use a big bloody T-bone steak to lure the plant back into the device, whereupon the Egnarans attempted to reverse the process Keshua had started. Unfortunately, the power cells of the device overloaded, causing an explosion which killed seven Egnarans and left Rose burning, smelling of failure and others' deaths.

It was the burning she remembered the most.

**ΘΣ … ΘΣ**

Martha was dozing on the jumpseat before Rose had even finished throwing the TARDIS into the time vortex. Rose smiled sadly at her and wished that their attempted trip to New Earth had gone at least a little bit better. As it was, no less than thirty-six people had died while they were in the Omega System. Martha bore a scar on her brow from fighting against her executioners and, judging from the hollowness around her eyes, had also lost some sleep to what Rose guessed were some terrifying nightmares.

Rose sighed and left Martha to her rest. She asked the TARDIS to act as Martha's dreamcatcher and was somewhat surprised to hear an affirmative hum in reply. It seemed the TARDIS had missed her. She patted a wall on her way to the nearest bathroom, cooing to the ship affectionately and then snickering quietly at herself for acting so Doctorish. The TARDIS certainly didn't seem to mind, though.

If there had ever been any doubt in Rose's mind about the time machine being alive, it had fled the moment the TARDIS had insisted on having regular contact with Rose. Rose hadn't much liked having anything messing about in her head at first, but now whenever she was too far away from the TARDIS for too long she found that she missed conversing with the ship's consciousness. It was like the ship was trying to compensate for both of them having lost the Doctor.

When she got to the bathroom, she hesitated before daring to look in the mirror. She had figured out on her own that she had not regenerated fully, as the Doctor would have done, for she had still been recognizable to others as herself. But she knew that something must have changed from the strange looks she'd been getting from Martha since they had reunited after the horrible shuttle-wreck incident.

What she saw in the mirror was rather surprising. Her hair wasn't bleached or straightened anymore and she was not wearing any makeup. At first these seemed to be the only changes, but when Rose dared to look closer she saw that her brown eyes had acquired an intriguing golden glow about them that was easy to miss at first glance. She wondered at this for several minutes before shrugging it off and deciding to shower away the last few rigorous days. There was nothing she could do about that weird glow, and it didn't seem harmful, so why worry?

As she got dressed, she realized her jumper still had a hole in it. She bundled it up and threw it in the trash before pulling a new, dark blue one from the wardrobe room. That had been where she had acquired the style she had adopted shortly after the Battle: leather jacket with pockets that were bigger on the inside, black jeans, and a jumper. She still wore her simple trainers, though; they were the easiest things to run in.

It was only today, months after the Battle, now that her hair was darker and her eyes shined with the unmistakable power of the Bad Wolf entity, that she realized whom she looked like. The Doctor, when she had first met him, had had a similar appearance. She scowled at the thought. What, was the Doctor overtaking her personality now? No matter how much she may love the Time Lord, that was not something she relished. She liked herself as she was, thank you. The Doctor had no place in her head, or only her heart.

Rose sighed and shook those thoughts out of her head before they spiraled out of control, which they seemed to do less and less now that she was adjusting to things. Having extra responsibilties could mature a person, Rose supposed, and taking care of Martha was most definitely a new responsibilty, one at which she had failed remarkably, so far.

Martha was still sleeping when Rose returned to the console room, but for once she did not take the opportunity to get buried in the library. She figured she was due for a break from studying, anyway. Even though she did kind of want to read about Omega and its history and what had happened to it after she and Martha had left. Rose remembered the dream she'd had after her half-regeneration and was consoled that Shani had done an excellent job setting things back in their proper order.

Unfortunately, having so much time on her hands while Martha was sleeping meant that Rose had nothing to do but sit and think. She remembered a remark the Doctor had made about humans spending half their lives unconscious and, for once, she had to agree with him. What fun was sleeping, anyway? She could hardly recall the last time she had ever even wanted to sleep. At first, she had stayed awake to escape the nightmares, but then it became a habit and after a few days she'd realized that she did not actually need to sleep anymore. She used to blame the TARDIS until the time machine had personally given her a sound talking-to about placing fault where none of it was due – and the ship hadn't been merely talking about insomnia.

Rose sighed and pulled out her sonic screwdriver to twirl it around in her hands. It was very similar in appearance to the Doctor's screwdriver only Rose's had a sort of dirty yellow light at the end of it rather than a blue one. Well, that and she actually knew what most of the settings on it were meant to do, as she – with the TARDIS' help, of course – had added many of them herself. Rose shook her head wearily. She really _was_ becoming too much like the Doctor for her mental security.

Eventually Rose crawled into the bowels of the TARDIS and fiddled with a few wires while asking the TARDIS what they were for. She had studied enough temporal physics in the library to understand _most_ of what the TARDIS was telling her, but several concepts continued to fly straight over her head.

By the time Martha woke up several hours later, Rose managed to nail down one of those elusive concepts and accidentally disconnect the hot water controls. Rose sincerely hoped that she'd managed to put _that_ wire back in the right place. Martha didn't complain when she went to a bathroom to freshen up, so Rose assumed she'd done all right.

Of course, she had also decided to take Martha home before something Rose did by accident got her killed, so it didn't really matter whether or not Martha hated Rose for depriving her of hot water.

It was the work of minutes to look up where Martha lived by following the invisible threads of her timestream and encouraging the TARDIS to grab hold of them. It was intersting, the little dance she and the TARDIS did around Bad Wolf, but after so long (too long), they had both kind of gotten used it. Rose's latest development of being able to see what appeared to be the people's timestreams made it so much easier to do work that otherwise could have taken a couple of hours.

From the information Rose was able to carefully feed into the heart of the TARDIS, the ship was able to decipher coordinates from the address. The TARDIS warned her, however, that it was going to be a tight fit and Rose had better be a lot more careful than she had been the last time she had flown or they would probably end up materializing inside a wall. Of course, the ship couldn't really say as much in actual words, not even by means of telepathy, but Rose was so used to interpreting little beeps and whirs and flickers of light and mental nudges that the TARDIS might as well have been an flesh-and-blood person speaking aloud.

In any case, Rose took her ship's advice to heart and completely zoned out Martha's babbling for the time it took to work the TARDIS into a little (miniscule, in point of fact) nook in Martha's apartment. She also took extra care to make sure they arrived twelve _hours_ after they had left and not twelve _months_, which, as she knew from experience, could only lead to utter disaster.

To Rose's immense pride, the TARDIS barely shuddered as they landed and she was sure that Martha couldn't tell at first that they had.

"Ha!" laughed Rose victoriously. "Perfect landing, and in a tight spot, too." She blew on her knuckles and grinned. "Think I'm getting better?"

Martha couldn't help but grin back. "S'pose you are. Where are we?"

"Oh, there's no other place like it," Rose assured her with a conspiratorial wink.

Martha pointed at the doors. "Safe?"

Rose nodded and Martha rushed towards them and stepped outside. Rose avoided looking at Martha but could still feel her vibes of disappointment.

"Home," stated Martha dumbly. "You – you took me home?"

"Morning after we left," Rose agreed. She leaned up against the side of the TARDIS and found comfort in its humming. "You've been gone about twelve hours. Hard to believe, I know."

She looked around Martha's quaint apartment and found some photos to look at of her family. A longing pang for her own family was supressed swiftly and viciously.

"But all the stuff we've done—Shakespeare, Omega XVI?

"Yep," said Rose. "All in one night. Time is relative, after all. Everything's just as you left it, 'less somebody broke in and moved stuff around."

Martha gave her a heartbroken, lost-puppy look. Rose refused to meet Martha's eyes. At her back, the TARDIS hummed, but for once couldn't make Rose feel any better – they both knew very well what it felt like to be abandoned.

"As I promised," said Rose as she gestured around her at the insides of the flat. "One trip – well, one to the past and one to the future of another planet. And now you're home."

"This is it?"

Rose really hated goodbyes.

"Yeah, so um, I'll just..." she pointed her thumb at the TARDIS; "...y'know, disappear or, er –"

Martha phone rang, interrupting Rose's feeble attempts at a dignified "see you never". Martha looked like she wanted to be anywhere but at home. The phone only rang a couple times before the answering machine got it: _Hi! I'm out, leave a message!_

"Sorry," mumbled Martha, embarrassed, as the machine beeped.

"_Martha, are you there? Pick it up, will you?"_

Martha didn't.

"It's my mum," she explained; "it'll wait."

Rose almost wanted to protest. If her own mum called her right now, she would never let some stupid machine be greet her. But that was unfair, really. Jackie Tyler lived in another universe. Happily, if Rose was any judge.

"_All right then, pretend that you're out if you like. I was only calling to say that your sister's on TV. On the news of all things. Just thought you might be interested."_

Martha glanced at Rose before picking up the remote and turning on the TV. A man's voice was speaking on it.

"_The details are top secret –"_

Martha seemed incredulous. "How could Tish end up on the news?"

On the screen was an old man standing before a press conference. A pretty young dark-skinned woman stood just behind him. Rose assumed that the woman was Tish, Martha's sister.

"_Tonight, I will demonstrate a device..."_

"She's got a new job," Martha told Rose. "PR for some research lab."

"_With the push of a button, I will change what it means to be human."_

Rose stared at the screen and tried to look beyond it. Sure enough, two thin, weak golden threads appeared tied about Rose's little finger, attached on the other end to the television screen: to Martha's sister and the old man. Trying on purpose to see the threads gave her a bit of a headache, however, so she stopped.

She looked longingly at the TARDIS and held onto a corner of it as if she could keep herself anchored where she was by doing so. She _really_ just wanted to run, get the hell out of here and leave Martha behind before something inevitably horrible happened. But the happy, bubbly feeling in her gut that she got around the potential for a new adventure would not fade this time and besides, Rose was afraid of what would happen if she tried to break the threads. Clearly she was meant to at least meet the old man and Martha's sister, or the threads wouldn't have crossed Rose's own timestream.

Rose jumped a little when Martha switched off the TV.

"Sorry," said Martha again. "You were saying –?"

"Yeah," Rose said. "I was saying, I really need to, er, go. One trip, as thanks for saving my life."

She was saying that, but really thinking about what the old man had said. Her grip on the TARDIS had loosened without her realizing it and TARDIS itself almost seemed to be chuckling at her, undulating waves of humming that washed gently against Rose's mind like a blessing.

"Yeah." Martha swallowed and nodded. "I suppose things just kind of...escalated."

_With the push of a button..._

"Thank you," said Martha, apparently resigned to getting left behind. "For everything."

"For almost getting you killed?" Rose retorted bitterly, other things dashed from her mind for the moment.

Martha frowned.

"_Almost_," she stressed. "You didn't, though."

Rose tried not to see the tears in Martha's eyes; that would just make her decision so much harder. Or could she still decide to leave, when –

_...I will change what it means to be human._

_No_. The threads, Martha's sister, changing humanity? Too many coincidences all tossed up in one great mangled salad and Rose could not resist taking a bite out of it. She'd be better off surrendering to that fact than hurting herself trying in vain to resist the siren's call of adventure.

"Did he say what I thought he said?" Rose suddenly asked Martha, who looked utterly confused. "Did he just say he was gonna 'change what it means to be human'?"

**ΘΣ … ΘΣ**

Rose offered up the wardrobe room to Martha's perusal and, of course, Martha promptly lost herself within its contents and Rose, after changing, was left with little to do. She'd decided on a simple little black dress with a tiny hidden pocket where she could slip the sonic screwdriver without it being a noticeable lump on her rump. The psychic paper she just stuffed in her bra. She put a couple of pearl studs in her ears but otherwise chose to forego jewelry.

Rose wandered around the TARDIS (barefoot, for the heels she planned to wear tended to get caught in the grating) until she a door abruptly appeared right in her path. She turned and tried to go down the hall another way, only to be faced with the same door again. She sighed and obliged the moody space/time ship by walking into the room. She was surprised to find that she was in the medlab.

"What the hell d'you want me to do in here?" muttered Rose, not really expecting an answer.

A light flickered over a corner of the lab and Rose guardedly made her way to the counter there. There was drawer, and when Rose opened it she was unsurprised to find a stethoscope. Taking a deep breath, she picked it up, put the ear plugs in, and pressed the cold disc to the right side of her chest.

The relief she felt at hearing absolutely nothing was so great she almost missed the echo of music that was coming from the other side. She moved the disc to the left until it was placed directly over her heart and listened intently.

Music. Sweet, ethereal music, like singing, only she couldn't understand the words. No heartbeat at all, as far as she could tell. Rose pulled the stethoscope away and hastily shoved it back in the drawer as if doing so fast enough would deny the reality of what was in her chest. Where had she heard that singing before?

It didn't matter. Rose turned around, fully intending to leave, when another light flickered over a strange-looking body-sized machine. Rose walked briskly to it and examined the little lights and buttons. She had no idea what the machine was supposed to do. One of the red lights, positioned above one of the buttons, started to blink. Rose shrugged and pressed the button. Another light, this one blue, blinked, and she pressed the button under that one too.

A small compartment opened on the machine's blank metal surface and panel opened up to reveal a touchscreen.

_Insert object,_ it blinked at her. Rose wrinkled her nose but obediently placed her hand inside the compartment. The words stopped blinking and were replaced with two squares, one green and one red. Rose tapped the green one with her free hand and the machine made an ominous whirring noise that made her jump.

A moment later, the noise stopped and a strange symbol – sort of a wonky cross with a backwards 'E' ovelapping it – appeared on the screen. Underneath was the word, _Measurement?_ Pointedly finished with a question mark. There were little tabs underneath the question, each listing different planets and galaxies, a few of which Rose actually recognized. She scrolled through the names until she got to _Earth_, then tapped on it.

_Measurement?_ was replaced by something that made Rose gape in shock for a full minute.

_Approximate Earth age value: 19 years, seven months. Note: Exact count requires full-body scan._

Rose yanked her hand out of the compartment and the machine shut down completely.

She backed away from it, shaking her head. It was impossible. Absolutely impossible. She may not have been keeping track of time as well as she should have since she had first started traveling with the Doctor, and especially since traveling without him, but she knew for a fact that she had to be _at least_ twenty-one years of age, probably even older than that. Right? Unless her hand was somehow younger than the rest of her which, no matter how Rose tried to rationalize it, would not make sense in her head.

She tried to logically deduce that the machine was defective. Why, then, had the TARDIS deliberately lead her to it? It wasn't something the ship was prone to do, not even as a silly prank. No, this was serious, and TARDIS knew it, otherwise the ship never would have led her to this machine in the first place. But why now? Why hadn't the TARDIS made her look at this thing before?

Unless it had something to do with her half-regeneration. Maybe she would continue to age, now, and if she had to go through that weird regeneration process again she'd go back to being nineteen once more. Rose wasn't sure how she felt about that idea.

Her head spun with theories, and none of them made sense. One was that she simply had not aged at all since Satellite Five, which was a ridiculous notion at best. Right?

She had to get away from the medlab and try to forget that the scan had ever happened. Yeah, that would help. Forgetting. Forgetting was good.

The TARDIS let her go, thankfully, having apparently made Rose aware of whatever the ship wanted Rose to know. Rose made a beeline for the console room and coaxed the TARDIS into traveling a few hours into the future. Then she called out to Martha, knowing the TARDIS would make sure she was heard:

"Martha! We're going to be late!"

"The showing's not for hours yet, remember?" Martha called back, sounding very annoyed.

Rose smirked. "Time machine!" She sing-songed. Martha groaned.

A few minutes later, Martha walked into the console room looking drop-dead gorgeous in a dark wine-colored dress and heels. She stopped in front of Rose and crossed her arms.

"You did _not_."

Rose tried not to smile. Really, she did. But when that failed, she tried hard not to look too smug about it. The console's light flickered ever so slightly in amusement.

"Sorry, yeah, I did."

Martha huffed at her and rolled her eyes. She even stamped her foot a little – a foot which, Rose observed, was clad in heels that would _not_ get stuck in the grating.

"What? There's no point in waiting when we can just, y'know, _be_ there."

Martha poked Rose in the chest with a finger. "_You_ have way too much fun, having time and space at your fingertips, Miss Rose."

Rose shrugged and smiled a bit sheepishly. "Sorry?"

Martha shook her head and walked out. Rose grabbed her stilettos from the console and followed while trying to tug them on at the same time, barely succeeding without falling flat on her face.

She flicked the TARDIS like she was brushing off a bug on her way out. "Be good," she murmured under her breath. The TARDIS glowed innocently at her.

**ΘΣ … ΘΣ**

They walked to the research facility mostly in silence, making some half-hearted small talk that didn't really catch. Despite their light-hearted banter in the TARDIS (inspired mostly by Rose's attempt to forget what she had discovered in the medlab and which she now solemnly regretted), Rose was trying to distance herself from Martha and Martha was noticing and trying not to care. The quandary there didn't exactly make for a pleasant atmosphere.

Lazarus Laboratories' reception room was full of people in black tie dress mingling. The most notable feature of the room, which Rose sneaked away from Martha to study, was a large white round cabinet surrounded by four pillars with a slight curve at the top.

It was pretty easy to sneak away from Martha since the other woman was preoccupied with looking for her sister. Rose grabbed an hors d'oeuvres from a passing serving platter and ate it in one bite while walking all around the cabinet. It was a little too big, and round, and clean, _and_ white, but it looked very similar to a device she'd seen before.

It was operated differently, she saw. There were machines set up on tables all around the device and when Rose looked more closely she saw half-familiar controls meant for monitoring the device's activities. She noticed a gauge and paled; if that thing came even close to overloading, she would have to pull the plug – which was, she found, smack in the middle of the other controls. Of course, just pulling the plug wouldn't work, all she'd get for her troubles was some serious electrocution. But she could decrease energy output first – the screwdriver would probably be enough for that – and that would make electrocution somewhat less likely. Even if it didn't, well – she would gladly give her life to prevent another explosion.

Rose was suddenly very glad that she had stuck around after all. This was technology beyond anything, that she knew of, that humanity had ever invented at this period in time. The theory alone was complicated enough that she couldn't remember all the details of it – although, she corrected herself, the main problem was wrapping one's head around the idea. Who would have thought that sound waves could be powerful enough to manipulate matter, after all?

She avoided touching the device but couldn't resist getting as close to it as she could. She shook her head at it.

"Sonic microfield manipulator," she muttered, remembering what it was called with no little distaste. "What is Lazarus going to do with that?"

"So your friend is a science geek?" Said a hushed voice nearby. Rose jumped; Martha and her sister Tish were looking at her. Martha appeared apologetic about something.

"Not exactly," said Rose dryly, "but I've got some experience with this sort of device. It wasn't pretty then and I don't like that it's here now."

"This is, er, Rose," Martha interrupted before Tish could start a fight.

Rose stuck out a hand. "Hello," she greeted. Tish met her eyes and let go of her hand quickly.

"She's not on the list," hissed Tish to Martha as though Rose wouldn't be able to hear her.

Martha tried not to get riled at Tish's self-important attitude.

"She's my plus one," she said, as though daring Tish to refute her claim.

"Lazarus!" Rose said loudly before the sibling bickering could escalate and causing the two to look around at her in confusion. "Your boss?"

Tish seemed slightly affronted. "Professor Lazarus, yes. I'm part of his executive staff."

Martha rolled her eyes and readily downgraded the importance of her sister's position, "She's in the PR department."

"I'm head of the PR department, actually." Tish looked impossibly smug.

Martha stared at her.

"You're joking."

Tish smirked. That damnable self-importance was back. "I put this whole thing together."

"Do you know what your boss is gonna be doing, then?" Rose asked.

Tish shook her head at Martha.

"Gotta get back to work now. I'll catch up with you later."

She left to mingle. Rose looked despiritedly at Martha.

"I don't think she likes me," she commented.

But Martha shook her head. "She doesn't like hardly anyone, it's not your fault."

"Martha!"

Martha turned and her eyes widened. Rose followed her gaze and saw a middle-aged woman wearing too much eye shadow and a young man whom Rose assumed was Martha's brother.

"Mum!" Martha exclaimed. She hugged her mother like she hadn't seen her in years. Rose swallowed and looked away.

Her mum was clearly surprised at this sudden show of affection. "Oh. All right, what's the occasion?"

Martha pulled away quickly.

"What do you mean? I'm just pleased to see you, that's all."

Now her mother was really confused, and slightly suspicious. "You saw me last night," she reminded her, as if she didn't know.

Martha, nodding, said, "I know. I just…miss you." Eager to get off that topic, she faced her brother. "You're looking good, Leo."

Leo didn't look like he enjoyed wearing black tie.

"Yeah. If anyone asks me to fetch 'em a drink, I'll swing for him."

Rose smiled a little. As if this was what it took to garner attention, Martha's mum finally noticed her. Rose's smile vanished when she realized that Mrs. Jones was glaring hard enough to melt her into a puddle.

"You disappeared last night."

Martha took a tiny step closer to Rose, placing herself between her friend and her mother, and muttered, "I...just went home."

"Is that all?" Martha's mum was glaring at Rose now.

Rose's eyebrows went up a little. What was it with Martha's relations that they seemed to unanimously agree that Rose was not someone to be liking?

Martha, sensing the tension, tried to break the ice. "Mum, this is a friend of mine, Rose."

"Rose who?"

"Rose Tyler." Rose hid a wince upon hearing her last name. "We've been doing some work together."

Leo shook Rose's hand. Rose smiled at him; at least _someone_ was polite. No wonder Martha had been so eager to get away from home. Witches and deadly political assassinations had to preferable to such a rude family. Rose took Mrs. Jones's hand and shook it as well, although the other woman didn't seem particularly happy about it.

"It's lovely meeting you, erm..."

"Francine Jones," she replied stiffly. She seemed to be avoiding meeting Rose's eyes.

Rose nodded. "Yes, right. Pleasure, Mrs. Jones."

The sound of silverware tapping on glass cut their conversation short – much to Rose's relief, as she really had not wanted to meet Martha's family to start with.

Lazarus stood before the sonic microfield manipulator, slightly hunched over in his age. He looked to be about in his seventies, Rose guessed.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I am Professor Richard Lazarus and tonight I'm going to perform a miracle. It is, I believe, the most important advance since Rutherford split the atom, the biggest leap since Armstrong stood on the moon. Tonight, you will watch and wonder. Tomorrow, you'll awake to a world which will be changed forever."

Lazarus turned and opened the door to the cabinet. To Rose's shock, he walked in and closed the door behind him. _Does the idiot have no idea that he's throwin' himself into a, a ... a _blender_?_ She wondered incredulously.

Two female technicians – dressed rather scantily for technicians underneath their labcoats, Rose noted – operated the bank of intruments behind the device. There was a high-pitched whir and a flash of bright blue light as the pillars began spin individually, creating an energy field. Then, as one, they started to revolve around the cabinet, increasing speed as they went. Rose's heart (which she could physically _feel_, no matter what she'd heard from the stethoscope) began to pound faster with fear and anticipation.

On cue, a warning klaxon was set off and Rose looked madly at the gauge she had taken note of earlier.

"No," whispered Rose. "Not again. Not this time."

Martha, apparently, heard her, and so had Francine, as they both looked at her strangely. Rose only hesitated a moment more before running towards the controls and jumping over their table, her dress billowing uncomfortably high around her thighs. The technicians were in a panic as some of the panels exploded, sending off sparks. Rose aimed the sonic screwdriver at the controls and flipped a couple of switches on them.

An old lady, possibly Lazarus' partner, must have thought she was inerfering with the project, for she yelled out, "Somebody stop her! Get her away from those controls!"

Rose glared at her. "Not if you want to live, you won't."

A few seconds later, she muttered, "Good enough." And, praying she wasn't about to go through another uncomfortable half-regeneration, Rose jumped back over the table and yanked out the main power cord. Sparks flew everywhere and she flinched back, but she was miraculously fine and the pillars were slowly coming to a stop; the energy field died out.

Martha ran up to the door of the device and Rose joined her just before she opened it. They watched through the smoke as Lazarus emerged, looking about forty years younger than he had going in. Photographers snapped a million pictures as Rose and Martha stood there, dumbfounded and amazed.

Lazarus touched his cheek, a smile coming to his face when he realized that his machine had worked. He stepped out completely and stood before the device.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I am Richard Lazarus. I am 76 years old and I am reborn!" He threw her arms open wide in victory and the black tie convention clapped for him.

The old lady who'd wanted Rose stopped had a horribly gleeful smile splitting her face in two. "He did it. He actually did it!"

People were taking the chance to have a photograph taken with Professor Lazarus. Rose stared at the machine and tried to piece together what she knew of it with what had just happened.

"It can't be the same guy. It's impossible. It must be a trick."

Martha was watching Rose, but Rose shook her head. "I wish it was a trick. That would be so much better."

"What just happened, then?"

Oh, Rose had a few theories on that. But basically, what it boiled down to was, "He just changed what it means to be human."

**ΘΣ … ΘΣ**

Rose took off in search of Lazarus and Martha trailed after her.

They found him with the old woman and a platter of hors d'oeuvres; he was shoveling food into his mouth.

"Richard!" Exclaimed the woman, scandalized.

"I'm famished," Lazarus informed her between mouthfuls.

"Well, it's no wonder," said Rose as she and Martha approached from behind him. "Sure you lost a lot of energy, going through that kind of transformation, yeah?"

Lazarus gazed on her with some surprise. "You speak as if you see this every day, Miss—"

"Rose. And no, I don't really see _this_ everyday, but I've seen a similar transformation before."

"That's not possible."

Rose tried to remember the technical terms. She needed to impress this idiot to get through to him, it seemed.

"Hypersonic waves used to create a state of resonance," she said a little too triumphantly. "Modifies matter," she added as an aside to Martha, "sort of. Well, ish. Destabilizes it, most of the time. Scary stuff."

Lazarus finally decided that Rose was worth paying attention to, but he wouldn't quite meet her eyes when he remarked, "You understand the theory, then."

"A bit, yeah. Kind of. At least, I understand it well enough to know that you took a big risk walking into that device."

"No experiment is entirely without risk."

Rose scoffed in disbelief.

"That thing almost exploded, taking all the people in this building with it!"

The old woman glared at her. "You're not qualified to comment."

"I stopped it and saved your arse, ma'am," she snapped at her. "So pardon me for pointing out that it should never have been attempted in the first place. What if I hadn't been here?"

"Then I count my lucky stars," said Lazarus none too graciously, "and thank you, Rose. But that's a simple engineering issue. What happened inside the capsule was exactly what was supposed to happen. No more, no less."

"You've no way of knowing that until you've run proper tests!" Martha told him off.

Rose hid a proud smile. Lazarus only laughed.

"Look at me! You can see what happened. I'm all the proof you need. Tell them, Lady Wolf."

Rose tried not to roll her eyes at the universe's none-too-subtle way of urging Rose to remain involved.

"This device will be properly certified before we start to operate commercially," Lady Wolf, the old woman, assured them.

Rose's eyebrows went up at that; Martha's jaw dropped.

"Commercially?" said Martha incredulously. "You are joking. That'll cause chaos!"

"Not chaos," argued Lazarus. "Change. A chance for humanity to evolve, to improve."

"Evolve?" Rose laughed shortly with derisive disbelief. "If you cared about humanity improving, why not make it available to the whole world? This is jus' about you and your _customers_ living a slightly longer life that they don't deserve! You are just a selfish idi– ,"

Martha elbowed Rose in the side and Rose clamped her mouth shut before more insults came pouring out. Lazarus, thankfully, didn't seem to care or chose not to show that he did.

"Not slightly longer, Rose. A lot longer. Perhaps indefinitely."

Lady Wolf seemed eager to be elsewhere. If Rose had to guess, she'd say the old woman was jealous of the attention Lazarus was giving Rose and Martha.

"Richard," said Lady Wolf, "we have things to discuss. Upstairs." She walked away. Rose made a face and a clawing motion with one hand when her back was turned.

Lazarus looked at Rose. "Goodbye, Rose. In a few years, you'll look back and laugh at how wrong you were." He started to reach for her hand, changed his mind, and took Martha's instead. He kissed the back of it before leaving.

Rose was disgusted.

"He has no idea what he's done, or might've done."

"So what do we do now?" Martha asked.

"Well, this is Lazarus _Laboratories_. It's like you said, there are proper tests to be run."

Martha looked at her hand and then held it up with a smile. "Lucky I've just collected a DNA sample then, isn't it?"

Rose giggled softly and tugged Martha along a hallway, away from the crowd.

**ΘΣ … ΘΣ**

It didn't take long to find a place to test the DNA. Martha knew what she was looking for and led Rose to a computer, setting up the test on her own. They looked at the results together.

Rose was already searching for threads before the results were uploaded. The thread leading to Lazarus (currently, to the computer screen) morphed as she watched, becoming more like a wire.

"Amazing," she whispered, watching the transformation back and forth from thread to wire with fascination.

"What?"

Rose let go of her sight of the threads, feeling as though her head was being released of a great weight, and pointed to the strand of DNA on the screen. She sure it would have to appear there, as well.

"The Professor's DNA."

"I can't see anything different."

"Just watch."

The DNA strand flickered and twisted around oddly.

"Oh, my God! Did that just change? But it can't have!"

"It did, though," said Rose. She was remembering man-eating plants with some revulsion.

"It's impossible."

"Fantastic, isn't it? Two impossibles in one night!"

Martha didn't share her enthusiasm. She was staring at the DNA, waiting for it to fluctuate again.

"That means Lazarus has changed his own molecular patterns."

Rose nodded, pleased that Martha figured that out for herself.

"Yep. The hypersonic sound waves destabilize things, it's sort of their specialty. Then he must've added a program to hack into his own genes and make them regenerate."

She shivered slightly at her unintended, casual use of the word 'regenerate'.

"But they're still mutating now."

Man-eating plants again. Rose made a face.

"Yeah, 'cause he messed up. They always do, the stupid idiots."

"Who?"

Rose ignored her, deciding not to mention that she was insulting men in general in case it gave the wrong impression.

"I'm guessing something in his DNA has woken up and won't go back to sleep. It won't let him get back in sync with his own DNA. It's changing him."

"Changing him into what?"

"That's what we need to find out," said Rose.

"That woman said they were going upstairs," Martha remembered.

"Come on!"

**ΘΣ … ΘΣ**

Back at reception, the bad feeling Francine had been carrying like lead in her stomach all evening worsened. She couldn't get the image of Rose Tyler's eyes out of her head. It was as if they had burned a hole in her brain and she could not get rid of it. Brown, with something terrifying and powerful lurking in the shadows.

She saw Tish and called out to her. "Have you seen Martha and that Rose Tyler anywhere?"

"Not since the demonstration," replied Tish.

Well, of course they'd _all_ seen them there, putting themselves out there like that. Francine had not liked the way Tyler had so perfectly placed herself right in the thick of things, and she certainly had not liked it when Martha had started to follow her around like a lost dog.

"Do you know anything about her?" Francine asked Tish. "Has Martha ever mentioned her before?"

"Not to me." She didn't seem that interested.

"The way she followed her," Francine murmured.

"She's a doctor," said Tish. "She was just doing her job."

"She's not a doctor yet. Never will be, if she doesn't stay focused."

"Look, she's finally found a good mate," said Leo. "So what?"

"There's something going on, Leo. I can feel it."

**ΘΣ … ΘΣ**

Rose and Martha took the lift to Lazarus' office. He didn't seem to be in there. Martha turned on the lights and looked around.

"This is his office, all right." It was fancy, and Lazarus was rich, so of course this huge room, which probably took up the whole floor, was just his office.

"Where is he, then?" was Rose's reply.

"Dunno. Let's try back at the re…" Martha's voice trailed off as she spotted something behind Lazarus' desk. "...ception."

It was a couple of skeleton bones wearing high heels. She and Rose rushed over to find the desiccated remains of what looked like Lady Wolf.

"Is that Lady Wolf?"

Rose pulled out her sonic screwdriver and buzzed over the top of Lady Wolf's head. She stopped quickly, looking a bit green.

"Used to be, yeah. Got the life sucked straight out of her, though. Guess he really was suffering from energy deficit."

"Lazarus?"

Rose shrugged. "Any other ideas?"

"So he's changed already."

"I don't think so," said Rose hesitantly. "The transformation he's going through...it needs energy. Lady Wolf's life energy may not have been enough. She was old, decrepit; not much life or energy left at all. He'll head for someone younger, healthier."

"You mean he's going to do this again?" asked Martha fearfully.

"It's possible. And knowing my luck, he definitely will."

They dashed back to the lifts and took them back to reception.


	10. What It Means To Be Human, Part II

**Episode Five**

**What It Means To Be Human, Part II**

"I can't see him," said Martha helplessly.

"He's got to be here somewhere," Rose responded. "Just keep looking."

Leo saw Martha and walked up to her.

"Hey, you all right, Marth? I think Mum wants to talk to you and your friend."

Martha barely heard him.

"Have you seen Lazarus anywhere?"

Leo nodded. "Yeah. He was gettin' cozy with Tish a couple of minutes ago."

Martha's eyes widened and Rose suddenly found a reason to pay more attention.

"With Tish?"

Rose focused on a finger and two threads appeared, both intertwining loosely with each other and pointing straight up. Francine joined them in that moment and gave Rose a death glare. "Ah, Miss Tyler," she said. Rose didn't have time for this.

"Did they go upstairs?" Rose asked Leo. He looked confused.

"Yeah, but –"

Rose and Martha were already pushing past him to the lifts. Martha banged into her mother on the way, causing her to spill her drink all over her gaudy gold dress. "Not now, mum!"

**ΘΣ … ΘΣ**

After they were gone, Francine stalked to a table and grabbed a napkin to wipe herself down. A man walked up to her with a glass of champagne.

"I think you need one of these," he said.

Surprised at his kindness, Francine took the champagne from the man and said, "Thank you. That's very kind of you."

"Do you know that girl?" asked the man.

"Which one?" Francine snorted bitterly. She felt like Martha was a complete stranger to her sometimes.

"The one you can never seem to look straight in the eye."

Francine looked at him and, taking courage from his knowing words, said, "No. She's a friend of my daughter's."

"Perhaps she should choose her friends more carefully."

The man walked away, leaving Francine to her worries and fears.

**ΘΣ … ΘΣ**

As soon as Rose stepped into Lazarus's office and saw that he wasn't in it, she looked at the threads again. They were intertwining dangerously closer together and Rose feared that soon they would just be one.

"Where are they?" Martha asked. Rose frowned at her and then pointed upwards. "But this is the top floor!"

Rose gifted Martha with her dryest look.

"The roof!" Martha exclaimed, and ran for the stairs with Rose at her heels.

They emerged on the roof to see Lazarus and Tish, who thankfully was not yet a pile of drained bones.

"'Between the idea and the reality'," Lazarus was saying softly to Tish; "'between the motion and the act-'"

"'Falls the shadow.'" Rose finished hollowly. Lazarus turned.

"So the mysterious Rose knows her Eliot. I'm impressed."

Rose wasn't. She only knew that quote by chance, really. A couple years ago she'd been having nightmares and she had found the Doctor in the library and he had read it – "Hollow Men" – to her. So few words brought back memories almost too painful to bear, so she pushed thoughts of them away.

"Martha, what are you doing here?"

Tish, unknowing and naïve, actually looked peeved that they had interrupted her 'date'.

"Tish, get away from him!"

"What?" _Ooh_, Rose winced at that antagonized tone. "Don't tell me what to do!"

Rose, meanwhile, decided to address the man who presented the real problem.

"Would've figured you were too busy defying nature to be reading poetry," Rose fired at him.

"You're right, Rose. One lifetime's been too short for me to do everything I'd like. How much more would I get done in two or three or four?"

"You really don't get it, do you? It doesn't matter how long you live if all you do is try to live longer. I've lived hardly twenty years," never mind that that was up for debate, "an' I can safely say I've seen a lot more of this universe than you have at nearly eighty. Time, an' I can't believe _I'm_ sayin' this, but time doesn't matter. It's the person."

"But if it's the right person, what a gift that would be!"

"A curse, more like," Rose scoffed. "Jus' look at you!"

"Who are you to judge me?"

"Over here, Tish," Martha encouraged. Tish walked over to her angrily.

"You have to spoil everything, don't you? Every time I find someone nice, you have to go and find fault!"

Rose couldn't believe that they were having a sisterly spat while they could be watching Lazarus transform into something...not exactly human. When Rose chanced to look, she saw that his and Tish's threads had almost completely separated, but now his thread was morphing so rapidly from thin thread to thicker wire that it was alarming. Lazarus himself appeared to be having some kind of seizure. There was a sharp pain in her head, so Rose quickly let go of the threads and watched with just her physical senses as Lazarus began to change.

"Tish, he's a monster!" Martha projected with disgust.

"I know the age thing's a bit freaky, but it works for Catherine Zeta-Jones."

Rose could do nothing, really, except stare at the horrific abstract art that was a mish-mash of human elements and what looked like a gigantic scorpion. When Tish finally realized what was going on behind her, the creature reared up to attack.

"Run!" cried Rose.

They raced inside and Rose swiftly closed and sealed the door with her sonic screwdriver. Martha hit the call button for the lift.

"Are you okay?" She asked Tish. Tish was still shellshocked.

"I was gonna snog him."

Rose wrinkled her nose, repulsed.

"That's gross. And so, _so_ wrong."

The mutated Lazarus pounded on the door.

Klaxons went off and over the PA system came a warning; _"Security breach. Security breach. Security breach."_

"What's happening?" Martha asked, startled.

Tish was ready with an answer: "Uh, an intrusion. It triggers a security lockdown. Kills most of the power. Stops the lifts. Seals the exits."

"Stairs!" Rose ordered.

As they ran down the stairs, they could hear Lazarus break through the door with an almighty crash.

"He's inside!" Martha stated the obvious.

Rose was preoccupied with the effort of running. She really didn't like running in heels. Next time she wore a dress, she was putting her trainers on whether anybody liked it or not. It was asking for a broken ankle to be leaping around a stairwell like a monkey in stilettos, honestly.

"Tish!" Rose called as they finally bounded into reception. "Is there another way out of here?"

"There's an exit in the corner, but it'll be locked now."

Rose tossed the screwdriver to Martha. "Martha, setting one. Hurry!"

Martha and Tish ran for the exit. Rose hopped onto the sonic microfield manipulator's platform and faced the people in reception who were looking around in confusion.

"Everybody listen to me! You all have to get out of here, you're in danger!"

"Don't be ridiculous," said a woman derisively. "The biggest danger here is choking on an olive."

There was a sound like glass shattering and Lazarus appeared on the landing above before leaping down onto the reception floor. Rose groaned.

"Why is it they can never just wait for all the innocents to leave?"

Rose frowned and tried to figure out what she could do. She had to distract him, certainly, but how?

"Mum, get back!" Leo shouted. He was promptly hit by a table sent flying by Lazarus.

"Leo!" Francine cried. Thankfully, Martha chose that moment to finally get the door to open.

"Over here!" Martha yelled. "This way! Everyone downstairs now! Hurry!"

The woman who'd said something about olives before Lazarus's arrival was in danger of getting her life sucked out, though.

"Lazarus!" Rose screamed. "Get away from her!"

There was a blood-curdling scream as Lazarus took the woman's life. Martha lead Leo and her mum to safety. Rose was furious.

"Oh, come on! Why should you bother with immortality if you're not even human enough to enjoy it? Killing doesn't help, Lazarus! It only makes things worse. You're a stupid, conceited, foolish idiot! Nature don't like you messing with 'er, and now look what she's done to you. You're fugly, Lazarus! A joke! A fugly, everlasting _failure_!"

Ooh, some of that struck a nerve or two. Lazarus reared his ugly head at Rose, but Rose was already gone, flying up flights of stairs and ducking into the maze of hallways within. Lazarus pursued.

Rose ran into a service hall filled with pipes. It was dark and Lazarus would have a hard time seeing her there.

"It's no good, Rose," Lazarus hissed. His voice was just as disfigured as his body. "You can't stop me."

"Oh, yeah? Just like nothing was wrong your device, is that right? God, you are a right arrogant piece of work."

"The arrogance is yours. You can't stand in the way of progress."

"Progress?" shrieked Rose skeptically. "_What_ progress? D'you mean that eating the life source of innocent people is progress? What the hell is wrong with you? Never mind – don't answer that, I think I can figure it out for myself."

"It is a necessary sacrifice."

"Says who? You're not a god, you bumbling moron!"

Suddenly, the power came back on and light illuminated Rose's position. She froze.

"Peek-a-boo."

Rose looked up and gulped.

"Oh. Hello."

She ran like hell.

**ΘΣ … ΘΣ**

"I've got to go back."

Francine could not believe what she was hearing. There was a monster running loose around the laboratories from which they had managed to escape and now her daughter was saying she wanted to go _back_ in there with that thing.

Who the hell was Rose Tyler to garner such dedication from Martha? Martha had always been so intent on becoming a doctor, she had never had much time for a social life or blokes or really close friends. And then suddenly this mysterious, dangerous Rose just appeared out of nowhere and Francine had no idea what to do about it.

Still, she tried to reason with her daughter.

"You can't! You saw what that thing did. It'll kill you."

For all the good it did, Francine may as well have been talking to a brick wall.

"I don't care. I have to go."

Martha had changed without Francine noticing and she didn't like that one bit. She didn't like Rose Tyler and she didn't like the way Martha seemed so close to her.

"It's Tyler, isn't it? That's what's happened to you. That's why you've changed."

Martha gave her a look that accused Francine of betrayal, as though Francine should be concerned about other things than her daughter's being corrupted.

Tish said, "She was buying us time, Martha. Time for you to get out, too."

"I'm not leaving her to fight that thing alone."

Without looking back, Martha ran up the stairs. Francine called after her to no avail.

**ΘΣ … ΘΣ**

Rose ducked into a lab. She looked around, hoping there were chemicals dangerous enough to use against Lazarus. There was nothing in particular that she found of use, though she certainly wasn't an expert on such things.

Then she saw the gas jets at each lab station. She spun about, looking for something she could ignite from a distance. It would be amazingly simple if she just had the screwdriver, of course, but as she'd given that to Martha she would have to be creative.

From where she was standing, Rose could see light switches by the exit across the room. She grinned at her own stroke of inspiration and climbed onto a bench to reach a light fixture, which she pulled from the wall. She pulled out a wire, exposing its end to the air. Then she leapt down and began to turn on all the jets she ran across on her way to the other door.

A sound from the direction she'd run from made her duck down instinctively.

"More hide-and-seek, Rose? How disappointing. Why don't you come out and face me?"

Rose snickered as she turned the last gas jet and stood to face him. "If you chanced to look in the mirror, I wouldn't need to tell you why I don't want to."

Rose spun around and darted out the door, slapping the light switches on her way out. She jumped when the whole lab exploded. She landed on her front with an "oof!" as the air was knocked from her lungs.

Nevertheless, Rose could not help but feel immense pride at her accomplishment. When she rounded the corner, however, she ran smack into Martha.

"What the hell are you doing here? I thought I told you to get out!"

"I'm returning this." She held out the sonic screwdriver and Rose snatched it from her, tucking it away in her hidden pocket and grumbling in her head about Martha being a little late. "I thought you might need it."

"I might have," Rose agreed. "But how did you know – ,"

"I heard the explosion," Martha interrupted. "Guessed it was you."

Well that was nice. What did that say about how Rose spent her evenings?

"I blew up Lazarus," Rose declared proudly. "And without my screwdriver, too!"

"You killed him!" Martha was stunned.

They heard a crash and twirled around to see Lazarus, who was snarling and growling unhappily and was just about ready to attack them. Rose's face fell.

"Pissed him off, actually," she corrected with no little disappointment. She pouted irritably. "But I was clever, for once!"

**ΘΣ … ΘΣ**

"She'll be all right," Tish tried to reassure her mother. "Rose and Martha, they'll look out for each other."

Francine shook her head in despair. "She turned her back on us, went in there with that thing."

Leo, sitting next to her, didn't seem to think that was problem.

"I dunno, mum. I think they can take care of themselves."

"Never seen her so friendly with anyone before," Tish remarked with a laugh. "They must know each other really well."

"She just met her," argued Francine.

The mysterious man Francine had met earlier walked up to them.

"Is your daughter still in there with Rose Tyler?"

Francine was standing before he finished speaking.

"Do you know who she is?" She asked him, fishing for information she could actually use. Maybe Tyler was a mass murderer or a terrorist or something.

"She's dangerous," the man said (like Francine didn't already know that!). "There are things you should know."

"What things?"

The man leaned forward to whisper in her ear.

**ΘΣ … ΘΣ**

Before Rose and Martha knew it, they were standing in the reception hall again.

"Crap," said Rose.

"What now?" Martha was looking to Rose for answers. "We've just gone 'round in a circle!"

They had to get to safety and they couldn't go back the way they came, Rose thought quickly. There were still lots of people outside and they couldn't let Lazarus get to them or, for that matter, roam freely in London. And Lazarus wouldn't _dare_ destroy his own device, so really their only choice was to –

Lazarus appeared on the landing and Rose made a mad dash for the manipulator.

"We can't let him get outside," she said to Martha. "So get in."

It was a tight fit, Rose and Martha sandwiched together like a couple of mutant sardines.

"Are we hiding?"

Rose thought that was a rather stupid question, as far as most questions went. "He knows we're here, Martha. Hiding would suggest that he doesn't."

"No need to get snappy," Martha snarled and shifted uncomfortably.

"He won't destroy his own device," Rose assured her, pressing herself against one wall as much as she could. She suddenly noticed that Martha was slightly taller than her, more so with the heels she'd chosen to wear, and blushed before hastily averting her gaze upward. "He's worked too long and hard to make it work. We're safe in here."

"But we're trapped!"

Rose winced.

"That...yeah, that is, er, potentially...problematic."

"You mean you don't have a plan?"

"This _was_ the plan!"

"And then what?"

"And then...I'd think of something else. Oi, at least we're alive!"

Martha banged her head against the wall behind her in exasperation.

"In your own time, then."

Rose sighed. If she were Lazarus, what would she do? There was only one thing he _could_ do without destroying the device, she realized. And it wasn't a pleasant thing. If he activated the device while she and Martha were in it...

Rose swallowed hard. She couldn't let that happen. She needed to disconnect the device, maim it, destroy it, fry it, before Lazarus figured out that he could turn the sardines inside into real sardines.

She pulled out the sonic screwdriver and carefully slid down the wall (blushing again at her proximity to Martha) to crouch down over the panel in the bottom of the capsule.

"What are you gonna do with that?" Martha asked.

"The only thing I'm really good at," Rose answered without looking up.

"What's that?"

"Improvising."

Rose managed to pop open the panel and pull it free. Underneath it was a confusing mess of wires and connectors that Rose could not possibly hope to make sense of in a million years. She stabbed at the wires with the screwdriver in frustration.

"I still don't understand where that thing came from. Is it alien?"

Rose thought about it and then shook her head.

"Not this time, no. Lazarus is still, realatively speaking, human."

She decided to just rip out all the wires and hope for the best.

"Human? How can it be human?"

"Dormant genes in Lazarus's DNA," Rose explained. It was just like the man-eating plant, only worse, for this thing could think intelligently, like a human. "Lazarus must've tapped into them by accident and since he wasn't expecting that to happen, he's got nothing to stop the genes from activating and changin' his DNA."

"So it's a throwback."

Rose yanked out some more wires with a grunt.

"An option for evolution that got rejected a long, long time ago. But if it was an option at one time, then it's still there. Lazarus just woke it up by mistake."

"It's like Pandora's box."

Rose, holding the screwdriver between her teeth as she pulled wires apart with both hands, hummed in agreement.

Suddenly, a blue light filled the capsule. Rose paused. "Shit," she cursed around the screwdriver.

"Rose, what's happening?"

"I think he just hit the 'on' switch."

"That's not good, is it?"

Rose didn't deign to reply. A high-pitched whine filled the cabinet and Martha covered her ears. Rose studied the wires carefully, taking particular interest in those she'd pulled out. She had a crazy idea that probably wouldn't work.

She started to put the wires back, crisscrossing them so they were connected to exactly the opposite side they had been before. Bottom wire on left side connected to the top connector on the right instead of the bottom one on the right, etc. But there were so many...

It was sheer guesswork.

"I don't want to hurry you, but—"

"Yeah, yeah, hang on. Almost done."

"What're you doing?"

"No freakin' idea," Rose replied honestly. Her hands were a blur. "But if my crazy, stupid, totally unscientific plan works, and it might not – it probably won't – I'm hoping the energy output will be reversed, since I'm changin' all these things around, and instead of taking energy, the device will release it."

Martha shook her head as if to clear it, clearly not entirely understanding what Rose was saying.

"Will that kill him?"

"Maybe."

The humming got louder.

"Hurry, we're gonna end up like him!"

"One more!"

Rose reconnected the last wire and pulled at a long and gnarly one; sparks flew. The energy field reversed itself, pushing outward. There was a strange sound as something was knocked back away from the capsule. Rose and Martha jumped out of the device and Rose had never been so relieved to take a deep breath of fresh air.

"I thought we were gonna go through the blender then." Martha breathed, clearly grateful to be out of there.

Rose empathized. She could hardly believe that her illogical plan had worked.

"Improvising," she said breathlessly, giddy with relief. "Works every time."

Lazarus, in human form, was lying naked on the floor. Martha looked down at him.

"Oh God. He seems so…human again. It's kind of pitiful."

Rose was reminded of Eliot again, at the end of the same book, the last lines of "Hollow Men": _This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper._ She resisted the ruge to say the words aloud and pushed the Doctor's voice forcefully from her head.

**ΘΣ … ΘΣ**

Medical services came to take the body away on a gurney in a bag. Martha and Rose watched them from the steps leading to Lazarus Laboratories.

Tish saw them and ran up to hug Martha.

"She's here. Oh, she's all right!"

Francine Jones came up to them after Tish and Rose smiled at her.

"Right, then. Mrs. Jones, I believe you wanted to speak with me?"

There was a resounding _crack_ and Rose heard the sound before she felt the sting in her cheek. Shocked, she lifted a hand to touch the reddened skin.

"Keep away from my daughter!" Francine bellowed.

Rose stared at Martha's mother in disbelief and flexed her jaw to make sure it still worked.

Martha stood ready to defend her. "Mum, what are you doing?"

"Now I know why he was such a baby," murmured Rose under her breath as she rubbed her cheek. _That hurt._

"She is dangerous! I've been told things."

Rose looked at her quickly. Who would be saying things about her? For that matter, who could have contacted Mrs. Jones who would possibly know anything about Rose that could be considered dangerous?

Martha seemed of a like mind. "What are you talking about?"

Francine took Martha by the shoulders.

"Look around you! Nothing but death and destruction!"

Rose averted her gaze in shame as a flush crept up her neck. But Martha had no compunctions about giving her mother the what-for,.

"This isn't her fault, Mum! She saved us, all of us!"

Leo decided to add his own brand of humor to try and break the ice. "It was Tish who invited everyone to this thing in the first place. I'd say, technically, it's her fault."

Tish elbowed him in the side.

From a distance, there was a sound of a crash. Rose and Martha looked at each other and took off running in the direction the ambulance had gone. Francine tried to hold back Martha.

"Leave her!"

Martha shook her head and ripped herself away from her mother's grip.

"Martha?" Tish called.

Francine shot her youngest daughter a look of pure fear.

"Not you, too?"

"Sorry." Tish left her mum and ran to catch up with Martha and Rose.

Down the street, the ambulance was stopped. Its doors were open and all that was left of the two paramedics inside were husks.

"Lazarus," said Martha. "He's back. But how? I thought you killed him, Rose."

Rose didn't reply. She winced in pain as she squinted at Lazarus' thread. Two appeared, one leading straight into the church to their right and the other disappeared behind Martha. Rose looked and saw Tish standing there. She scowled.

"Where's he gone?" Martha asked. She looked into Rose's eyes and blinked as though in surprise. Rose glanced at her finger again and the threads vanished, alleviating the horrible tension that was building behind her eyes. She stumbled and Martha caught her around the waist before she fell. "You all right?"

Rose shook her off and pointed at the church, dismayed to see that her whole arm was shaking. "There," she said unsteadily. "In the church."

"Cathedral," Tish corrected. Rose looked around at her in irritation; her head was pounding and Tish didn't belong here. "It's Southwark Cathedral. He told me."

**ΘΣ … ΘΣ**

Inside, as they proceeded up the nave, Rose dared to briefly glance at the thread again. It was still pointing straight ahead.

"Do you think he's in here?" Martha asked.

"Definitely," said Rose. "This _is_ a sanctuary."

They moved forward through the empty cathedral to the open space behind the altar. Rose looked up and saw the bell tower.

Lazarus was sitting on the cold stone ground, gasping. He clutched at a red blanket from the ambulance which was wrapped around his otherwise bare body. His thread was now fluctuating madly, and thinning out like it was fading. He was dying, or was going to die soon. The thread was ending, Rose realized. But it wasn't because of the mutation. The mutation could potentially allow him to live forever. No, this end was caused by something else. And it was inevitable that it _would_ happen.

Rose looked away from the thread and her legs buckled at the release; she fell toward the ground and just caught herself at a crouch. She hid the moment of weakness by making it look like she'd done it on purpose to put herself face-to-face with Lazarus. Martha still appeared concerned, however. Rose made herself look strong for her.

"I came here before," Lazarus spoke. "A lifetime ago. I thought I was going to die then. In fact, I was sure of it. I sat there, just a child…the sound of planes and bombs outside."

"London Blitz," Rose recalled; she still had that shirt somewhere.

"You've read about it?" Lazarus assumed.

Rose tried not to smile.

"I was there."

Lazarus scoffed, understandably. "You're too young."

"Yeah, I could say the same about you," Rose countered.

Lazarus started to laugh but then he gasped in pain. Rose straightened up quickly, recognizing the start of his mutation. He seemed to fight it a little, but she knew it was only a matter of time.

"_But I don't understand," said Rose to Tilo, a blue-skinned, black-haired Egnaran. "What good would it do to get the thing back into the device? Wouldn't that just make it worse?"_

"_We're not going to be doing the same thing Keshua did, Rose," Tilo replied. "We're going to be using the device a little differently."_

"_But how?"_

_Yika, a female Egnaran with pink hair, spoke up from behind them, "By using the hypersonic sound waves to get rid of the resonance patterns created by Keshua."_

"_Which means?"_

"_By overloading the estam's genes with the hypersonic sound waves," said Tilo, "they'll be so destabilized that they'll simply...fail."_

"_You mean the estam will die?"_

"_Basically, yes."_

"_An' what are these hypersonic whatsits, anyway?"_

"_Very high frequency sound waves that can't normally be heard by Egnaran – or human," Yika nodded politely to Rose, "ears. They are normally hidden by ordinary sound waves, but their power can be amplified using a sonic device."_

"_So it's like they piggy-back on sound. What about...I dunno, turning up the volume?"_

_Tilo shrugged. "Depends. There has to be hypersonic waves on the sound waves or the volume wouldn't make a difference."_

"_And that device...it makes the hyper-things more powerful?"_

"_On a very basic level, yes." Yika smirked. "Now, are you going to help us or what?"_

"_What do I look like? Of course I'll help you."_

Rose mentally shook the images from her head. Lazarus was speaking again.

"In the morning," he said, "the fires had died, and I was still alive. I swore I'd never face death like that again."

Rose frowned at him and looked up at the bell tower. Her sonic screwdriver seemed to burn through her pocket, itching to get out and be used. She paced in front of Lazarus and Martha watched her. From the expression on her face, she knew that Rose was planning something.

"So defenseless," Lazarus continued, staring at a sight beyond the cathedral. "I would arm myself, fight back, defeat it."

"You were gonna do that today." Rose tried to keep him talking.

"I did do that today," Lazarus corrected.

Rose's hands itched with the need to strangle something.

"What about the people who died because of what you did?"

"They were nothing. I changed the course of history."

Rose blew out an irritated breath.

"Yeah, an' so could any one of those people. They could have been better than you. History's not just made by science and maths, Lazarus. Death is a part of being human. If you never face it, you're _not_ human. You're nothing more than an aging rock watching the stars completely pass you by for someone who actually cares to look at them. And there's nothing you can do to improve on that."

"No, Rose. _Avoiding_ death: that's being human. It's our strongest impulse, to cling to life with every fibre of being. I'm doing what everyone before me has tried to do. I've simply been more…successful."

He groaned in pain again. He was close to changing.

"Successful?" Rose huffed. She continued to pace, thinking about other things as she talked. She wondered, in the darkest corner of her mind, if this was what the Doctor would do. "I'm looking at you and I can't see any success at all. You're changin', Lazarus, and not for the better."

"I call it progress. I'm more now than I was. More than just an ordinary human."

Rose stopped pacing to snort derisively. She'd never met an 'ordinary' human in her life.

"He's gonna change again any minute," Martha whispered. Lazarus was hunched over in pain and not paying them any attention.

"I know," Rose whispered back. She looked up and then back at Martha. "If I can get him up there, in the bell tower, I have an idea. Don't know if it'll work, mind, but I can try."

"Up there?" Martha confirmed, pointing upward, and Rose nodded.

"You're so sentimental, Rose. Maybe you are older than you look."

Rose had no idea what the truth was on that topic. According to that damn machine in the TARDIS, she was still just nineteen years old. It felt like she'd lived as long as the Doctor. She wondered how he dealt with it, and then remembered his long bouts of broody silence, the dark stares, the aching hole of loneliness she'd tried to banish. She swallowed a lump in her throat.

"Not really, no," said Rose in a strangled voice. "But I've seen enough...I know that – I know that the older you get, the more you have to struggle. Not just from the, the physical breakdown, but from life itself. It tires you out," she said, seeing dark eyes filled with despair she couldn't ease; "wrings you dry. Watching – watching the people you love wither and die," her eyes stung; "it always ends the same. Lonely."

"That's a price worth paying."

But there was some doubt in his eyes and Rose began to feel truly sorry for the man. He was going to die because Rose couldn't let him hurt anyone else, but here at his end he was starting to question the beliefs he'd held for so long; he was starting to realize that the meaning of being human was not what he'd thought it was.

Lazarus shuddered and screamed.

"I will feed soon."

"No," assured Rose, "you won't. Never again."

"You've not been able to stop me so far."

Martha came up behind Lazarus.

"Leave her, Lazarus!" She yelled, and Rose felt her stomach drop. "She's rotted and bitter. Thought you had a taste for fresher meat."

"Martha," Rose said, "no, don't, please..."

It was too late. Lazarus snarled and leaped at Martha, who was already running. Tish ran with her and Rose cursed under her breath.

"Rose, the tower!" Martha shouted.

Lazarus screamed, piercing the night.

"Martha?" Rose called.

She appeared in one of the archways in the upper level of the cathedral. "Rose!"

"Lead him to the very top, have you got that? All the way up!"

"Then what?"

There was a scream and Martha disappeared from the archway to get away from Lazarus, who'd changed into a monster again.

Rose ran to the big pipe organ and sat on the bench. She only knew how to play a few children's songs from some brief experimenting with a keyboard she'd done as a teenager, but she really just needed the noise. She played with the sonic screwdriver until she found a setting she thought would work for sending the hypersonic frequencies through the noise and then inserted it into a slot on the organ.

"Piggy-back time," muttered Rose mirthlessly.

Up above, one of the women screamed. Rose looked up as Lazarus roared. Rose started playing _Mary Had A Little Lamb_ with a little more desperation than the song was probably meant to be played with. Unfortunately, it didn't have the desired effect.

"Come _on_," Rose muttered.

She pulled out the sonic screwdriver and turned up the volume as far as it would go, to eleven, and then replaced the screwdriver. It _had_ to work. She started playing again and thought her eardrums would burst from the power of the noise.

Above, Lazarus writhed in pain before finally toppling over the edge and falling to the floor. Rose stopped playing immediately.

"Martha?" She yelled through the ringing in her ears. Sounded like she was yelling underwater.

"I'm okay!" Martha cried loud enough to be heard. "We're both okay!"

Rose walked over to the old, dead human body of Lazarus. She knelt before him and closed his lifeless eyes.

Martha ran down the stairs and to Rose, who flung her arms open without thinking. They hugged each other tightly for a few seconds and Rose had never felt so relieved to see someone alive as she did right then.

"I'll never be able to think about _Mary Had A Little Lamb_ the same way again," Martha laughed.

Rose shrugged. "Well, that was all I could think of at the time. Never really got around to learning to play a church organ, sorry."

Martha stuck a finger in her ear and pretended to clean it out. "Maybe you should learn a lesson or two about playing too loud."

Rose blinked and cupped her ear. "What was that?"

Even Tish laughed.

**ΘΣ … ΘΣ**

Martha walked back to her flat with Rose; Tish returned to their family.

In the apartment, they stood awkwardly in front of the TARDIS. Rose once more tried to find the words to say goodbye.

"Looks like things escalated again, sorry."

"I can see a pattern developing," Martha replied. "You should take more care in the future. And the past, and whatever other time period you find yourself in."

"Fun, though, right?"

"Yeah."

Rose cleared her throat.

"I guess I should be going then."

"Right."

Rose made herself turn around. She took the TARDIS key from around her neck and opened the door. It was colder inside than she expected and she shivered, slipping the chain back around her neck where it belonged. The door closed behind her but didn't lock; she knew Martha wouldn't follow.

She wondered where she would go next. She had read about a planet where the people were orange and had no eyes; she could go see what they were like. Or maybe she could go to Lupus Nocens in Colorado – she and the Doctor had always thought that the best chips in the universe were there. Or, to get rid of the blasted headache that threatened to pound her skull open, she could test the limits of her newfound immortality on Bacardi 9, where they sold drinks that could probably poison the average human with a single drop.

Rose walked slowly to the console and halfheartedly pressed a few buttons. The TARDIS clicked in concern, but Rose shrugged it off like discarding a jacket. There was nothing the ship could do, after all, except to take her far, far away.

_Keep away from my daughter! She is dangerous!_

She threw a lever, rotated a little ball approximately thirty-three degrees down and to the right, and flicked a tiny, inconspicuous little switch that was hiding behind a larger one. Rose tried to imagine the Doctor doing all of this instead of her, but the memories in her head were blurry. Or maybe that was just her tears.

"_It's overloading!"_

"_Quick, stop the machine!"_

_Tilo and Yika were yelling to each other frantically and Rose just stood there helplessly as the high-pitched whirring pierced her ears and sparks flew madly into the air. The whirring grew louder and louder and a gauge on the device had its needle pointing so far in the red zone Rose knew they didn't have any time left._

"_It's too late, Tilo, there's nothing we can do!"_

_Three Egnarans – Rose didn't know their names – tried to turn off all the switches, but that didn't do anything. Rose backed away slowly, for she was only in their way. Helplessness was a terrible feeling._

_She almost ran into two faceless others as they ran past her with big cans that vaguely resembled fire extinguishers. They sprayed bits of frozen stuff on the controls and the controls froze and stopped sparking, but the garbage can-sized device at the far end of the room just spun faster and faster. Rose threw her hands over her ears in agony and staggered backwards, trying to get away from it. She tripped and stumbled halfway up a flight of stairs._

_Rose tried to call out a warning for them all to run away, just get out of there, only the pain was too much and all that came out was a terrified scream. Tilo and Yika were running towards her; she could read her name falling from their lips._

_There was a great flash of light. Tilo and Yika were consumed instantly, vaporized in the heat of the explosion due to their proximity. Rose wasn't so lucky, for she had run far enough away to burn. And burn. And burn._

_After the explosion, Rose crawled forward as well as she could, climbing down the few steps to the room they'd been using. She got an eyeful of the destruction, smelled smoke and death and fear, and broke down sobbing._

"Wait!"

Rose immediately turned her back on the door so Martha wouldn't see the tears that fell silently from her face. The TARDIS's near-constant humming fell abruptly silent at Martha's entrance.

"What is it?"

Martha was silent for a moment and Rose suspected that she was put off by Rose's not even deigning to face her, but Rose was too busy trying to blink back tears to care.

"It's just, you never did explain to me, that thing you did in Bethlam Hospital. When you were glowing. And then sometimes after that, I thought I saw... And then, you're hair, you know, you never explained that. I mean, you said you would tell me things."

"Yeah, I did. Sorry, I... I really shouldn't have done that."

Martha's hurt silence was enough of a reply.

"I just mean, I don't..." Rose swallowed the sob that threatened to explode from her chest. "...I don't really understand it myself, so I can't explain it to you, either."

Several minutes passed and Rose almost thought that Martha must have left, but then the other woman spoke again and robbed her of that illusion.

"Are you crying?"

Rose was biting her lip, hard, to keep it from trembling.

"No!" Rose insisted sharply. But her voice warbled just enough to betray her lie. "Just get out, Martha, you hear me? Listen to your mother for once and get the hell away from me!"

_Look around you! Nothing but death and destruction!_

"No."

Rose heard the TARDIS door close and Martha's footsteps on the grating as they approached Rose.

"I don't believe that, not for a second. You're – you're the bravest, kindest person I know. You're not dangerous!"

Martha was right behind her. Rose spun around and grabbed her by the shoulders. She was sure her eyes were glowing fiercely now, as the pain in her head bloomed into an epic agony such as she'd felt only a few times before. Rose intended to frighten Martha, make her _run_, terrify her into believing just how easily she could get hurt.

"_Go_!" She roared, and her voice twisted into something deeper, darker, and so menacing she could hardly recognize it as her own.

Martha stood her ground. Her face and eyes did not betray even a hint of fear. Rose could not, for the life of her, understand _why_.

"No. I'm not scared of you, Rose Tyler. Did you forget what I told you in Omega? _I believe in you_."

Rose's face froze. It was done, it was over, she'd done everything she could, and now Martha had doomed herself to traveling with Rose for a long while yet. Like a lifeline in a stormy ocean, Rose clung to Martha, burying her face in her shoulder, no longer crying, just needing an anchor to hold her down before she drifted away into nothing. Martha wrapped her arms around Rose's shoulders and obliged.

**ΘΣ … ΘΣ**

_Ring!_

"Hi! I'm out, leave a message!"

_Beep!_

"Martha, it's your mother. Please, phone me back. I'm begging you. I know who this Rose Tyler really is. I know she's dangerous. You're gonna get yourself killed. Please, trust me. This information comes from Harold Saxon himself. You're not safe!"


	11. Alone, Part I

**Author's notes at the end.**

* * *

**Episode Six  
****Alone, Part I**

After Rose showed Martha to her new room, she hurried back to the console room. There were proper tests to be run.

Recalling what Martha had done to test Lazarus' DNA, Rose plucked a hair from her head with a wince and waited with bated breath for the results. It took longer than she expected, but she supposed that not everything could be as instantaneous as they made it look on the telly.

The results were puzzling, to say the least. Her DNA strand almost looked like a normal human's, but a detailed analysis revealed that there were twelve extra pairs of chromosomes that shouldn't exist. The image fluctuated every other second, apparently even more unstable than Lazarus' had been. Her DNA kept trying to thicken, multiplying the sides of the double helix and twisting them all around the "rungs" until it resembled more of a rope than a ladder.

The TARDIS had samples of countless different species' DNA recorded in its archives. Rose searched until she found the one for Gallifreyans. She compared the record with her own DNA and found that Gallifreyans also had twelve more pairs of chromosomes than humans. However, the image of the Gallifreyan DNA strand looked nothing like what her own was apparently changing into. Theirs actually looked closer to a human's. She, apparently, was something else entirely.

Rose sat in the jumpseat and stared blankly at the screen, which displayed her rapidly flickering DNA. She just didn't have enough information. She couldn't possibly hope to search through the databanks to find the species that exactly matched her DNA; it was feasibly ridiculous, as there were simply too many. Hell, the TARDIS had archives for trillions of plants and animals, down to the grubbiest maggot. It could take her centuries to find what she was looking for.

She rubbed a hand tiredly over her face and found that the tears she had shed had dried and her cheeks felt like they were stretched taut. She was still wearing that dress, too. Her feet were throbbing.

First thing was first, she decided. She needed to change and wash up before worrying about anything else. After that, she needed to compile a list of things that had changed since – well, since she first started noticing the changes.

There were a lot, she realized upon merely thinking about making such a list. She'd simply pushed it all to the back of her mind like it hadn't mattered. It was brought more firmly to her attention by the Judoon in Royal Hope Hospital, but even then she hadn't thought of how extensively she had changed.

After the list, Rose continued her previous train of thought, there was research to be done. She couldn't do it all at once, unfortunately, as Martha was going to be ready to tackle their next adventure as soon as she had rested. But she could start, anyway.

So Rose took a quick shower and after dressing settled down on her favorite rug in the library with a spiral notebook and a pen.

It took nearly half an hour to think of everything she thought was worth noticing:

_Some comm. w/ TARDIS after Sat 5  
__Lots of comm. w/ TARDIS after Battle  
__Insomnia?  
__Better memory  
__Erratic periods at first, then none  
__Faster/better healing?  
__Weird spidey-sense  
__B. Hos – Bad Wolf  
__Access to power that can kill me (BW?)  
__Senses better; details clearer, etc.  
__Regen. on Omega (ish)  
__Eyes can glow?  
__Music w/ heartbeat?  
__Age is wrong?  
__Threads (timelines?)  
__DNA's fucked_

Rereading the list, Rose was satisfied with her notes. She started wandering around the library in search of a book or five that could start her on her research.

Mostly she found books about DNA and of what it was made. Although it wouldn't tell her anything much about the mutation she was undergoing, it was a beginning. Rose spent some time perusing these books and acquainting herself with a subject she was sure would take a lot more delving into in order to find any acceptable answers.

Before Rose knew it, there was a call from the hallway outside and she jerked upright in a sitting position. She knew that voice; Martha was awake already. Had she really been reading for that long? Rose grimaced; there had been a time when she wouldn't _touch_ a book for fear of breaking out in hives. As it was, her muscles had grown stiff and there was a cramp in her right hand from writing.

"In here!" Rose shouted, stretching.

Then she blinked; her notes were lying scattered all around her. She hastily collected them into one semi-organized pile and had just finished stuffing the list into a dusty book entitled _The Building Blocks of Identity_ when Martha opened the library doors and barged in.

"There you are," Martha exclaimed. "I've been looking all over for you! Did you know that there's a room here that's completely full of water?"

"That's Squeegee's bowl," Rose explained as she took her armful of research and dumped it into a chintz armchair by the rarely-used fireplace.

Martha looked taken aback. "Squeegee?" She repeated with befuddlement.

Rose smiled. "Yeah. He sort of followed me around for a while an' when I left his planet - called Aguasta, interesting place – he stowed away on board, so the TARDIS made 'im a home."

"What sort of alien is he?"

Rose shrugged. "Not sure, really. He was a pet on Aguasta. Looks sorta like a cross between a squid an' a starfish. He likes to eat scraps of metal."

"Is that a...normal occurrence around here?"

"What, the stowaways? No. But starsquids are pretty common, yeah. On Aguasta, at least."

Martha's expression was one of amazement. She looked around as though just realizing where she was. "This is the library?"

Rose nodded. "Part of it, yeah." When Martha gave her a strange look, she pointed at the bronze spiral staircase in one corner of the room. "That leads to the second level, which is about twice as big as this one. Third level's three times as big, etcetera. Thirteen levels total."

Martha's eyebrows shot straight up. She walked around in a circle with her arms spread wide. "But this, this _alone_, is huge! How many books are in here?'

Rose laughed. "I have no idea."

Martha saw the old-fashioned desk and made her way over to it. She ran her hands over the huge four-foot tall stack of books that stood precariously in one corner. "What's this, then? Favorites of yours?"

"Er..."

Martha picked up a book and flipped through it. "Lot about the States in this one," she noted. "Great Depression's got a great big chapter."

She dumped the book back on the top of the stack and picked up another, _Holes In The Universe by Dr. Samantha Carter_.

"Do you read this stuff?"

Rose shrugged casually, trying to pull of a nonchalant look. "Sort of, yeah. That's my, er, 'read and memorized' stack. Some on the floor, too."

Martha leaned over to see the stack that continued on the floor, reaching just past the height of the desk itself. Her jaw slackened.

"You've memorized all of these?"

"I've thought about where we're going next," Rose changed the subject abruptly. Martha put _Holes_ back and crossed her arms expectantly. "I thought, since it didn't really go so well last time, we could try for New Earth again. I think you'd like the cat nuns, if you can get past their experimental tendencies. I prefer dogs, myself. There's dog people on Kenla if you'd rather go there."

Martha shook her head and laughed. "Cat _nuns_? Seriously? No, New Earth is fine for me."

Rose applauded; why, she didn't know, but it felt like the thing to do. "Great! After you, then."

Martha preceded her into the hallway. As they walked to the console room, Martha continued to talk.

"Seriously, though, did you actually memorize everything that's in those books?"

"Mostly." Rose tapped her temple with a finger. "Got good memory, me. Not perfect, but it comes in handy."

"But what for? What d'you need all those books for?"

Rose sighed. "I just do."

"Some history, but most of them seemed to be about wormholes and black holes an' stuff like that. How come?"

"'Cos I like astrophysics, Martha, that's why. Now come on, are we going to New New York today or are we gonna stand around flappin' our mouths about dry pages?"

Martha, hurt by Rose's antagonistic rejoinder, said nothing in response. Rose felt a little bit guilty but was grateful she'd managed to get her off the subject.

Maybe deciphering genetic terminology had given her mind a rest from temporal physics, but piloting the TARDIS seemed a lot easier now than it had before. The TARDIS only gave her a nudge every now and then. She wondered if she should add this to her list. Humans weren't supposed to be able to pilot at all, after all.

"New New York," Rose announced when they landed smoothly. "One of the most beautiful places I've ever been." She smiled at Martha and Martha, despite still being a little angry at Rose, couldn't help but smile back. "Go on," Rose encouraged. "Tell me what you think."

Martha made her way to the doors and opened them, stepping outside without hesitation. She made a noise of disgust and Rose quickly followed her.

...Into a pouring rain shower. There was even a musty tarmac smell that was almost enough to convince Rose that they were just in the slums of any ordinary city.

"This is Rose-speak for beautiful?" Martha muttered sorely, zipping up her dark green hoodie.

"No, no, no," Rose insisted, looking up at the dark sky above. She couldn't see any stars. "I _know_ I got it right this time! Besides, I like rain. Come on, get under cover."

They dashed through the junk-ridden street, past gigantic dumpsters and lines of old laundry.

"Well," complained Martha, "it looks like the same old Earth to me. On a Wednesday afternoon."

"Give me a minute," Rose said. "We'll find out what's goin' on. I _know_ this is the right place."

There was a bit of roof hanging over the side of a building that provided some protection from the rain. On the wall of the building was a dead screen. Rose determinedly buzzed her sonic screwdriver at it. Static appeared on the screen. Rose frowned at it.

Martha rolled her eyes and pounded on the wall next to the screen; the static faded away and Rose shot Martha a grateful look.

A charming blonde news anchor appeared on the screen.

"– _and the driving should be clear and easy, with fifteen extra lanes open for the New New Jersey expressway."_

The image shifted to one Rose was much more familiar with: it was New New York as Rose knew it, a gorgeous spired city on the coast of a large river. Sleek vehicles flew through the air.

"Much better," Rose said, satisfied. "That was where we were before. I guess this a kind of city under the city, the ghettos."

"You've brought me to the slums?"

Rose grinned at her. "More dirt down here, though. Getcha hands dirty, play around a bit. It's all high-class, champagne, sparkly dresses an' fancy hospitals up there. Here, we get to see what makes it run."

Martha shook her head. "You'd enjoy anything."

"I've been in worse places, believe me. An' look! The rain's stopped."

Martha grabbed hold of Rose's arm before she could leave.

"When you say 'before', was that you and the Doctor?"

Rose really didn't like that question, but answered with a simple, "Yes."

"Are you – I mean, I don't want to presume anything, or – well, do you think maybe you're trying just a little too hard to bring him back, bringing me here?"

Rose wasn't sure what the right reply was for that.

"I mean, not that it's not great and all; I mean, except for the rain, and the smell, and the slums in general," Rose cracked a smile; "I just don't want you to mistake me for someone I'm not."

Rose was silent for such a long time that Martha immediately began to feel guilty.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said anything, just forget I – ,"

"Martha Jones," Rose said abruptly, taking her hand. "You've probably saved me from myself. That's something the Doctor never had to do. So yeah, I know who you're not, but I also know who you _are_." Martha was gobsmacked. Rose smiled at her. "All right?"

Martha nodded. "Yeah. Right. Thanks, I think."

A man suddenly flipped open his shelter to reveal a street vendor's cart.

"Oh! You should have said. How long you been there? Happy! You want happy?"

All around them, others were doing the same, sticking their heads out into the street and shouting their wares.

"Customers! Customers! We've got customers!"

"We're in business! Mother, open up the Mellow, and the Read!"

The first seller was still shouting, "Happy, Happy, lovely happy Happy!"

"Anger!" yelled the second; "Buy some Anger!"

"Get some Mellow," the third persisted. "Makes you feel all bendy and soft all day long!"

The man closest to them leaned over and told them conspiratorially, "Younger, them. They'll rip you off. You want some Happy?"

Rose shook her head, confused. "Are you...are you selling drugs or something?"

He laughed at her along with the other vendors.

"Drugs, she says," said a woman. "She from last century or what?"

"It's moods," said Martha disgustedly. "They're selling moods as drugs. That's the human race five billion years in the future. Off their heads on chemicals."

Some bedraggled people walked into the alleyway behind Rose and Martha. The pharmacists increased the volume of their offers. A very pale woman in a charcoal cloak walked purposefully toward the vendors.

"Over here, sweetheart! That's it, come on, I'll get you first!"

"Oy! Oy, you! Over here! Over here! Buy some Happy!"

"Come over here, yeah. And what can I get you, my love?"

The woman said in a voice hollowed with loss, "I want to buy Forget."

The pharmacist seemed to pity her choice but did not argue.

"I've got Forget, my darling," she said. "What strength? How much you want forgetting?"

"It's my mother and father," explained the woman. "They went on the motorway."

"Oh, that's so sweet." She reached behind her and pulled out a small disc. Handing it to the woman, she said, "Try this. Forget 43. That's twopence."

The woman took the disc and turned away.

"Wait," said Rose, coming up to her. The woman looked at her, her pale face shining in the streetlights. "What's worth forgetting? What's the motorway?"

"What are you, stupid?" The woman scathingly replied. "Everyone goes on the motorway in the end. I'll never see them again."

"But," Martha said confused, "they can just drive back. Or you can go after them, right? They can't be that far away."

The woman shook her head. "I've lost them."

"So what?" Rose said. "It's still better to keep them close to you, right? In your memory, you know, _not_ forgotten?"

The woman stared at her and sighed, dropping her eyes. Rose grabbed her hand, the one that held the circular disc-thing, anticipating that she was going to do something with it. The woman looked angry and tried to pull her hand away, but Rose was stronger.

"Listen to me," she told her gently. "I've lost my parents too. But I wouldn't want to forget them for anything. It's better to just live with the pain than pretend that they never existed. Don't you agree?"

It was clear that the woman didn't. She struggled harder, but Rose refused to let go.

"All right," Rose tried with forced calm. "What's your name? Or did you want to forget that, too?"

The woman stilled. "Silva."

"Silva," Rose repeated. "That's a good start. What were your parents like, Silva?"

Silva looked away. "Kind."

Rose nodded slowly. "Getting better. Go on, what did they look like?"

"My mom was – my mom was beautiful. And my dad had this _stupid_ beard."

Rose smiled. "My dad was ginger. Mum always did have a thing for gingers, even after he died."

Silva said nothing. Then suddenly she pointed over Rose's shoulder with a free hand.

"Car-jackers!" She shouted.

Rose let go of her and spun around just as Martha screamed. Two figures in dark clothing had come up from behind her. One, a man, grabbed Martha around the neck from behind while the other, a woman, stood in front holding a gun at Rose and Silva. They were already starting to drag her off before Rose could think of anything to threaten them with. She tried to make her eyes glow on purpose but she was sure it didn't work when the kidnappers didn't scream like little girls with pigtails and run to hide like she wanted them to.

"I'm sorry," the woman with the gun was saying. "I'm really, really sorry. We just need three, that's all."

"Let go of her!" Rose screamed, running after them but wary of the gun pointed at her head. "I mean it, you better let go of her, or I swear to God you're gonna regret it."

Martha was kicking out and struggling but the kidnappers were just too fast and efficient.

"I'm sorry. I'm really sorry. Sorry."

The woman was practically crying by the time she and the man who held Martha escaped through a large green door, which was slammed closed behind them. Rose growled in wordless frustration and pounced after them. Unfortunately, the door was locked, and in her fury she fumbled with the sonic screwdriver.

Eventually she yanked the door open and flew up a flight of stairs after the kidnappers. She could hear Martha struggling and yelling at her captors.

"Wait!" Rose bellowed as she sprinted through the building and down a corridor. "Whatever it is you want, I can help you get it!"

A car was just rising into the air as Rose emerged from the building and out onto a fire escape. It powered up and sped off down the street and out of sight.

Rose kicked the railing in frustration and jumped back as the corroded metal tore off and plummeted to the ground below.

She stalked back to "pharmacy town" in a really bad mood and was surprised to see Silva still there, staring at the disc in her hand as though it were a foreign meal she was being made to eat.

"Thought you'd come back! Do you want some happy Happy?"

"Piss off," Rose told the vendor not so kindly. The man sputtered indignantly.

"Silva!" Rose called to get her attention as she approached. Silva looked up, startled. "Who the hell were those people an' where did they take Martha?"

Silva sighed, too forlorn to answer.

"They've taken her to the motorway," said one of the pharmacists helpfully. Rose turned and gave him such an acidic glare he quailed.

"Why?" She demanded of Silva. "You called them car-jackers. What for? What have they done with Martha?"

Silva shook her head. She had her eyes closed and was fingering the Forget in her hand.

"I'd give up now, darling," said a vendor. "You won't see her again."

Rose breathed deep through her nose before turning around.

"Used to be thriving in this place," said the man she'd told to piss off. "You couldn't move. But they all go to the motorway in the end."

"Three," Rose said sharply. "That's what they said, 'we just need three'. Why?"

"It's the car-sharing policy," answered the woman who'd sold the Forget to Silva, "to save fuel. You get special access if you're carrying three adults."

"Where is the motorway? How do I get to it?"

"Straight down the alley, keep going to the end. You can't miss it."

Rose started to turn and walk in that direction when the woman spoke again, "Tell you what – how 'bout some happy Happy? Then you'll be smiling, my love!"

Rose went stock still and took a deep breath. She clenched her teeth and tried very, very hard not to lose her temper, which seemed to be on an extremely short fuse lately. When she turned around, the woman flinched. Rose glared at all of the vendors.

"Pack up," she warned. "If you're here when I get back – an' I will be, _with_ Martha – you'll never be happy again, you hear me? I'll stick those moods so far up your arses you'll be throwin' it up for days."

She turned on her heel and jogged away. Silva, curiously, followed her.

"Wait!" Silva stopped her. "You won't be able to breathe if you keep going that way!"

Rose glared at her. "I've done fine without my breath before, but thanks for your concern."

"But the pollution," said Silva, "it'll kill you!"

"Great," said Rose sarcastically, "I'll get to give my dad a hug. Meanwhile, I thought you were off tryin' to forget yours."

Silva looked at the disc in her hand and, to Rose's surprise, tossed it the side. "I don't think I'll be needing it after all," she said.

"Good job," Rose complimented, somewhat sardonically. "Breakin' the habit's always a good thing; congratulations. Now, what were you saying about pollution?"

"The fumes are like a sea of fog," Silva said. "Breathe it in and you can die in seconds."

Rose's eyebrows went up. "Really? That's...some real awful emissions testing you got here, then. How are cars that make that much pollution even legal?"

"What, outlawing cars because of exhaust? You've got to be joking."

Rose shook her head. "Look, it doesn't matter anyway. I'll just hold my breath and hitch a ride or something."

Silva laughed at her. Rose shrugged and left her there. Silva hurried after.

"You're insane! I've got to watch this."

"Suit yourself. Want some popcorn with that?"

"Some what?"

**ΘΣ ... ****ΘΣ**

They walked for a while until they came to a short, delapidated passageway at the end of which was a locked door with a sign reading "MOTORWAY ACCESS".

"It's locked for a reason," Silva warned. "No one comes through here anymore, it's too dangerous. If you want to keep going, fine, but I'm not coming with you to get myself killed, too."

Rose grinned at her. "What, have you got better things to be doing?"

"Damn right I do."

"All right."

Rose shrugged and used her customized sonic screwdriver to open the door. Just one step outside onto a platform and she was coughing violently. She forced herself to stop breathing and instantly felt better, apart from an uncomfortably still chest. It seemed she could go without oxygen for quite a while; something else to add to the list. She should have remembered that from her stint on the Moon.

She looked over her shoulder and saw Silva silhouetted against the door frame, holding her cloak over the bottom half of her face and watching Rose incredulously, not leaving but not putting herself in danger, either.

When Rose looked straight ahead, almost all she could see were the fumes. Silva hadn't been kidding; it was like a sea of fog. Her eyes burned just trying to see through it.

Alongside the platform was the vague outline of a flying car. As Rose studied it, a door slid open in its side and a large man covered from head to foot in protective gear stuck his head out.

"Hey!" He called. "You daft little street strut! What are you doing, standing there? Either get out or get in! Come on!"

Rose smiled at him and looked over her shoulder at Silva, who seemed hesitant to either stay or leave. Rose beckoned to her and finally she rushed towards Rose and past her, hopping into the floating vehicle. Rose jumped after her.

"Did you ever see the like?" Said the man to a dark-haired woman at the front of the car.

"Here you go." The woman handed Rose an oxygen mask, who gave it to Silva. Silva was looking pale as she greedily sucked in a breath. Rose released her lungs with a grateful sigh. She had no trouble breathing after that.

"Just standing there, breathing it in!" The man continued. He pulled off his aviator cap, scarf, and goggles, revealing a feline face. "There's this story says back in the old days, on Junction Forty-Seven, this woman stood in the exhaust fumes for a solid twenty minutes. By the time they found her, her head had swollen to fifty feet!"

Rose seriously doubted that.

"Oh, you're making it up!" The woman laughed at him.

The cat-man was making his way to the front of the car to sit in the driver's seat. "A fifty-foot head! Just think of it. Imagine picking that nose." Rose's lips twitched at the thought. Yes, imagine.

"Stop it. That's disgusting."

"What? Did you never pick your nose?"

Suddenly, the woman sat up straight and tapped the cat-man on the arm. "Bran, we're moving!"

"Right. I'm there, I'm on it." Bran pulled a lever and they shifted forward a bit. Others cars moved into places around them and horns beeped from every direction. After a couple of seconds, Bran drew the lever back.

"Twenty yards!" Bran claimed triumphantly. "We're having a good day."

The woman smiled. Then they both turned around to face Rose and Silva. Silva was starting to pull off her oxygen mask.

"Hi," said Rose before they could speak. "Thank you for giving my friend and me a ride; it's been a rough day. I'm Rose, and this is Silva."

The cat-man grinned at them. "My name's Thomas Kincade Brannigan, and this is the bane of my life, the lovely Valerie."

"Nice to meet you," said Valerie.

"Likewise."

Silva was looking around them with sudden uncertainty. Brannigan gestured to something behind Silva. "And that's the rest of the family there."

Silva turned and drew back a curtain behind her, revealing a basket of mewling kittens. Silva immediately cooed sweetly and picked up a tiny black one, petting its fur softly. Rose felt more inclined to avoid the cats. She didn't really like them all that much. Hell, cat _people_ were hardly tolerable, although Brannigan seemed all right.

She did think it a little odd that this couple were traveling with their young. "How old are they?"

Valerie answered, "Just two months."

"Poor little souls," said Brannigan softly. "They've never known the ground beneath their paws." Rose stared at him and Silva's sickening coos increased in intensity. Brannigan must have Rose's confusion, because he added, "Children of the motorway."

"What, were they born here?"

"We couldn't stop," Valerie explained. "We heard there were jobs going, out in the laundries on Fire Island. Thought we'd take a chance."

Rose couldn't believe what she was hearing. "You've been driving for two _months_?"

Brannigan was incredulous. "Do I look like a teenager? We've been driving for twelve years now."

"Say what?"

"Yeah! Started out as newlyweds! Feels like yesterday."

"Feels like twelve years to me," Valerie disagreed.

"Ahh, sweetheart, but you're still lovely."

He tickled her and she giggled.

Rose's brain was frozen on one subject. "Wait, _what_? Seriously, you've been driving for _twelve_ years?"

"Yes, ma'am," said Brannigan. "Started in Battery Park about five miles back."

"Five _miles_?" Rose was _so _confused. "In twelve years, that's it?"

Silva put the kitten back and took to watching Rose, who was apparently very entertaining.

"I think she's a bit slow," Brannigan muttered to his wife.

"She is a bit mad," contributed Silva.

"Where are you from?" Valerie asked.

Rose shook her head, still dumbfounded. "What does it matter? Look, I need to find my friend, Martha Jones. She was taken an' I need to get her back. I probably would have had better luck in the TARDIS than this, though. Excuse me,"

She stilled her lungs and pulled open the door, but there was nothing but smoke and fumes and outside; no platform. Rose stared into the fog as though willing something to appear.

"You're too late for that," said Brannigan. "We've passed the lay-by." Rose closed the door and started to breathe unsteadily. "You're a passenger now, Little Missy!"

"When's the next lay-by?" Rose demanded.

Considering, Brannigan replied, "Oh...six months?"

Rose fell back against the wall of the car, seething.

"I'm sure there's a way to find your friend," said Silva. "We could try contacting the police."

Rose brightened up a bit. "Yeah, let's try that."

But it was no good calling the police. To Rose's immense disbelief, the robotic voice message echoed the words that appeared on the screen with the NYPD insignia when she tried to call them: _"Thank you for your call. You have been placed on hold."_

"But...but that doesn't make sense! You're the police!"

It didn't make a difference to them, apparently.

Rose sighed. "Is there anyone else? The Face of Boe, d'you know him? I met him last time we were here, if I could just get in contact he might be able to do something from his side that can help."

"You can't make outside calls," Valerie regretfully informed her. "The motorway's completely enclosed."

"All right, nobody outside, but what about other cars. Surely you know someone who can help me."

Brannigan grinned. "Oh, we've got contact with them, yeah. Well, some of them, anyway. They've got to be on your friends list. Now, let's see – who's nearby? Ahh! The Cassini sisters!"

He picked up his transmitter and talked into it. "Still your hearts, my handsome girls. It's Brannigan here."

An older woman responded with mock annoyance, _"Get off the line, Brannigan. You're a pest and a menace."_

"Oh, come on, now, sisters. Is that any way to talk to an old friend?"

"_You know full well we're not sisters."_ Rose had the thought, from the tone of the woman's voice, that she would be rolling her eyes. _"We're married."_

This seemed to be an old issue between them.

"Oooh, stop that modern talk! I'm an old-fashioned cat. Now, I've got a hitchhiker here, Rose Tyler."

Brannigan handed the transmitter to Rose, who grabbed it gratefully.

"Yeah. Right, erm, hi. I'm looking for a woman by the name of Martha Jones. She was carjacked by two people, she should be in a car somewhere, I just need to know which one and where I can find it."

Another woman responded this time, _"Wait a minute."_

A few seconds later, the woman asked, _"Could I ask, what entrance did they use?"_

Rose opened her mouth, couldn't come up with an answer, and looked to Silva for help.

"Pharmacy Town," Silva supplied.

Right, of course. Should've guessed.

"Pharmacy Town," Rose said into the transmitter.

"_Let's have a look."_

"_Just my luck, to marry a car-spotter."_ The other woman sounded fond but rather exasperated.

Rose looked at Brannigan in askance. "What're their names?"

"Car-spotter's May," Brannigan answered. "And her lovely sister, Alice."

Rose almost berated him for calling them sisters but caught herself. Valerie was smirking as if she knew what Rose was thinking.

May finished looking up what Rose needed. "_In the last half hour, fifty-three new cars joined from the Pharmacy Town junction."_

Fifty-three? She didn't have enough time to track down fifty-three cars!

"Can't you...I dunno, narrow that down a bit?"

"_All in good time. You said she was carjacked by two people?"_

"Yeah."

A moment later, May was victorious.

"_There we are. Just one of those cars was destined for the fast lane. That means they had three on board. And car number is four six five diamond six."_

Rose repeated the number under her breath half a dozen times very rapidly.

"That's got to be it. How do I get to them?"

"_Ah. Now, there I'm afraid I can't help."_

Rose hung her head in disappointment. She looked at the transmitter and then at Brannigan. "You can call them on this, though, right? Now that we know their number? I can talk them."

Brannigan, however, shook his head. "Not if they're destined fast lane. It's a different class."

"_You could try the police."_

"They put me on hold!" Rose thought she could start laughing hysterically at any moment. The situation was so desperate; she _had_ to get Martha back.

"_You'll have to keep trying,"_ said Alice._ "There's no one else."_

What, these people were just abandoned here? No police, no order, nothing but the universe's worst traffic jam? It was like some great cosmic joke.

"Thanks anyway," said Rose miserably. She gave the transmitter back to Brannigan and put her head in her hands, trying to think of a plan.

Silva put a hand on her shoulder, but that just made her feel worse.

"Take me down to the fast lane," she said to Brannigan and Valerie. "We've got four people in here now, that's enough to get us there."

"Not a million years."

And Rose had thought Brannigan was being so helpful.

"Why the hell not?" She demanded. Brannigan looked away from her quickly and he and Valerie exchanged looks.

"We're not risking the children down there," said Valerie simply. Rose glared at the kittens in question as if they were solely to blame for Martha's kidnapping.

"What's at risk?" She demanded. "More smog? You've got clean enough air in here. Biggest danger is getting squished between two cars."

Valerie shook her head with determination. "We're not discussing it! The conversation is closed!"

"How long do we keep driving?" Rose asked wearily.

"'Til the journey's end," said Brannigan.

* * *

**Hi, I'm still alive! I honestly didn't mean to go...how long has it been? Holy crap, three and a half months without updating? Yeah, sorry. But as every writer knows, RL's a freakin' bitch. I have been trying to stay ahead of my postings, so it will still be a while in between updates, but I am bound and determined to take this bunny all the way through to its end, wherever the hell that is.**

**Oh, and if anyone has suggestions for the whole Harold Saxon/The Master arc, I'm open to others' thoughts because I've only done a bit of brainstorming on it. All other episodes have been pretty much planned out, though, so don't bother trying to sway me on those.**

**For romantics, there's a poll on my profile. Although this isn't a romantic fic, and never will be, I am willing to add an element of romance if you guys (my readers) want me to. The poll is to gather opinions on what the ship might be, if any. Ultimately, the decision is mine, but I thought I'd let others have a say. I would like it if voters would PM me if they feel strongly about one thing or another - whether it has to do with the poll or not. AUs can be finicky for writers and readers, because they can turn in any direction at any time, and some people might not like the direction it takes. I'm usually more like, "My way or the highway," about writing, but I can (rarely) be willing to compromise.**


	12. Alone Part II

**Poll is still open.**

* * *

**Episode Six  
****Alone, Part II**

"How long do we keep driving?" Rose asked wearily.

"'Til the journey's end," said Brannigan.

Rose didn't much like the sound of that. She was surprised to see that no one else seemed bothered by it, not even Silva. She shuddered. Something was very _off_ about all this.

Rose leaned over and snatched the vocal transmitter from Brannigan.

"Mrs. Cassini, this is Rose," she said. "Exactly how long have you been driving?"

Alice was the one who answered. "_Oh, we were among the first_," she said. "_It's been twenty-three years now_."

Rose tried not to think about that too much. Spending that much time on the road was simply unthinkable. And impossible. And _wrong_.

"Have you ever even seen a police car?"

Valerie and Brannigan exchanged uncomfortable, disquieted looks. Rose got the impression that the things she was questioning were only silently acknowledged among drivers and never discussed.

"_I'm not sure_," said May.

"Your notes," Rose insisted. "Look at them."

Silva was listening to the conversation quietly, stroking the fur of one of the kittens.

May sounded upset when she responded. "_Well, there are no cars on record as such, but..._"

"Ambulance?" Rose suggested. "Anything? Anything besides cars just like yours or Brannigan's, anything official?"

May was flustered. "_Well, I can't very well keep a note of _everything_._"

There was silence. Then Silva said softly, "What if there's no one out there?"

Brannigan snatched the transmitter from Rose's hand.

"Stop it!" He said. "The Cassinis were doing you a favor."

Rose glowered. "Someone's got to ask, Brannigan. You know it. You too," she pointed at Valerie, "and you," she poked Silva in the knee. "And the Cassinis, too. You don't talk, but the questions are there. Where is everyone?"

Brannigan looked back at her with resignation. He'd been defeated long ago. Everyone touched by the motorway had. That was why Silva had wanted to Forget. Rose held Brannigan's gaze.

"What if this," she gestured outside, "never stops?"

"There's a whole city above us," Brannigan said, but the truth was in his eyes. "The mighty city-state of New New York. They wouldn't just leave us."

"Then where are they?" Silva asked quietly. They all turned to look at her. "What if there is no help coming?"

"Just the motorway," said Rose. "The cars driving, driving, never stopping. Forever."

"Shut up!" Valerie barked. "Just shut up!"

Rose looked at her sadly. How had things gotten so wrong in her and the Doctor's absence? What had happened to these people?

The screen in the front of the car that showed the NNYPD symbol flashed to life. It was the news again.

"_This is Sally Calypso, and it's that time again! The sun is blazing high in the sky over the New Atlantic, the perfect setting for daily contemplation."_

This seemed to bring a spark of life back to Brannigan and Valerie. Brannigan nudged Rose.

"You think you know us so well," he said. "But we're not abandoned, Rose Tyler. Not while we have each other."

Valerie smiled.

"_This is for all of you out there on the roads. We're so sorry. Drive safe."_

Valerie, Brannigan, and Silva began to sing along with the hymn that was playing over the broadcast. Rose looked on, her heart aching.

_'Sorry', they say_, she thought savagely with tears in her eyes that she wouldn't allow to fall. _They'd better be._ Because she knew that something was wrong. And she knew, just as these things always seemed to go, that she was here to make it right. With the Doctor gone from this universe, that was her purpose. To take his place and do the best she could until she figured out how to get him back to where he belonged. Wherever something was fucked up, the TARDIS was sure to take Rose there so she could straighten it out.

Martha, wherever she was, had to be thinking along the same lines. Rose had to find her. Once they were together, they would free these people from this infernal confinement. It wasn't right, wasn't logical, wasn't _fair_ to be driving along a road for an entire lifetime. Eventually, there had to be a destination. It was wrong to be made to drift about aimlessly for eternity.

The irony was not lost on her, but this wasn't the time for that.

And so, when the singing stopped, Rose came to a decision.

"If you don't take me," she announced, "I'll go down on my own."

Rose pulled out her sonic screwdriver and inspected the floor. If she could drop down through each car until she reached the bottom, she had a chance of getting to the fast lane. What she'd do when she got there, she had no idea. But she knew deep in her gut that she needed to at least find out what Brannigan and Valerie were scared of and she had to make sure Martha was safe from it.

At Rose's declaration, Silva froze and Brannigan and Valerie turned to stare at the brunette like she was mad. Rose was rather used to being looked at that way and didn't take much not of it.

"What are you doing?" Brannigan demanded.

Rose looked up, glaring. Honestly, was he daft, or what?

"What does it look like?"

"_Capsule open."_ Announced the electronic voice of the computer.

The bottom of the car flew open, revealing the nightmarish scene of the dozens – _hundreds_ – of cars below them. There was one pulling up right underneath the opening, and Rose braced herself to jump.

"It looks like you're going to kill yourself," said Silva dryly.

"_Why_?" Valerie added.

Rose didn't answer. She shared a look with Silva, whose expression she could not decipher. She jumped.

Rose hit the car below with a jarring thud, careful to hold her lungs perfectly still so she wouldn't choke on the poisoned air. Although she apparently did not require as much oxygen as an ordinary human, she had a feeling that breathing in the fumes would be Very Bad with capitalized letters. As she stood on the roof of the car, her heart beat a staccato rhythm in her chest. She didn't look back, but she heard the hatch above her close.

Using the screwdriver on the same setting she'd used on Brannigan's car (she was glad she had customized the thing instead of having the TARDIS design it after the Doctor's, which was confusing as hell), Rose opened up the top of the car she had landed on and was gratified to see it open. _"Capsule open."_

She hopped down, bending her knees to absorb the impact, and took stock of her new surroundings.

There was a pale man dressed in white staring at her in shock. Rose blinked back at him, taking a deep breath of fresh air.

"Who the hell are you?"

"Er, passing through. Yeah, sorry."

Rose knelt on the floor and set to work on opening it.

"Are you mad?"

"_Capsule open."_

"A bit, yeah. Have a good day!"

She leapt through, holding her breath.

"_Capsule open."_

Rose grinned at the two startled Asian girls in the front of the next car as she opened up the bottom like a can of beans. She didn't speak this time, having not bothered to take a breath between jumps.

"_Capsule open."_

She gave a wave and jumped down. The adrenaline of it all was shooting like a potent drug through her veins. God, she loved that feeling. She _lived_ for that feeling.

In the next car, though, she was met with an unwelcome surprise. Rose blushed to the roots of her hair and let go of her breath to stammer an apology at the two naked drivers who were decidedly not expecting her to literally drop in on them. They stopped all motion and blinked owlishly at her.

"_Capsule open."_

"Don't mind me!" She squeaked, and hurried through the floor.

And immediately started coughing, having forgotten to close her mouth. It was hard to stop breathing once she'd started, and her eyes were soon streaming, the back of her throat burning something fierce. She could really use some water. How far down had she gotten? There only seemed to be a couple cars left.

The next car was lit eerily in blood red and a big man peered intently at her from the driver's seat. Rose regained her composure, took a deep, steadying breath, gave him a cheerful thumbs-up to let him know she was all right (as if he cared), and moved on.

Rose had a frozen moment in the next one. A man in pinstripes was staring out at the traffic jam when Rose dropped in and she had to choke abrupt, inexplicable tears from her eyes just from the sight of the damn suit. It was just unexpected was all, she told herself as soon as she blinked the tears the away, and her throat was still burning and anyone would be caught off guard in her position, really. He didn't actually remind her of the Doctor, he appeared physically too old, too serious, too meek, too quiet, it was just that the pinstripes were uncomfortably familiar.

"'Scuse me," said the man, having spun around to face her, "is that legal?"

Rose blinked. She hadn't expected him to talk at all, for some reason, nor had she even considered whether or not car-jumping was legal. Given that there were car-jackers who kidnapped people to get to the fast lane, she doubted that hopping from car to car was anymore acceptable. But who knew with these people?

"Probably not," she finally conceded. Then she winced. Her voice was dry and scratchy. "Sorry," she rasped. "Have you got any water?"

"Certainly," the man said. "Never let it be said that I've lost my manners."

He grabbed a plastic cone and filled it with water from a water cooler, then handed it to Rose, who accepted it gratefully.

"Thanks," she said after she'd sucked up the last drop. Her throat felt better, anyway, though her nostrils were still burning a bit. "Is this the last layer?"

The man nodded.

"We're right at the bottom, ma'am. Nothing below us but the fast lane."

Oh, good. Rose didn't think she wanted to go through more of that jumping stuff. While it was fun at first, the sting of the pollution kind of took the brightness out of it a bit.

"Great," she said. "What's your name?

"Mark."

"Right, Mark, can you drive us down?"

"There's only two of us," Mark said, not patronizingly. "You need three to go down."

Oh, yeah. She'd forgotten that for a moment.

"Well..." she paused thoughtfully. "Can't you jus' cheat?"

Mark smiled apologetically and her stomach dropped. "Well, I'd love to, but it's an automated system. The wheel would lock."

"Damn," she muttered. She tossed the plastic cone to the side and knelt on the floor, flicking the switch on her sonic srewdriver.

"You can't jump!" said Mark, scandalized. "It's a thousand feet down?"

Rose shot him a scathing look. "What are you, daft? Of course I'm not going to jump!"

"_Capsule open."_

The only thing beneath the car was thick, murky fog. She could hardly see through it. Tiny lights glittered in the distance, but she couldn't make out their source. There was a screeching roar and Rose jerked her head up.

"What was that?"

Mark shook his head, his eyes looking a bit haunted.

"I try not to think about it."

Yet another one who ignored things right under his nose. What was it with humans and their propensity for denial? The thought disturbed Rose because it sounded far too much like something the Doctor would have said.

Rose pointed. "All right, what about the lights?"

A wisp of fog made its way into the cabin and Rose coughed it away. She frowned. If only she could see through it. That was all she needed: to see what was down there and make sure there was nothing that could harm Martha, or, if there was, how she could stop it from harming Martha.

She had to pause to think about it. The only way she think to get rid of the pollution was to blow it away with bursts of air. But the motorway was basically underground, wasn't it? There wasn't any natural wind blowing.

She raised an eyebrow. No _natural_ wind blowing. But then, how could _anyone_ in the under-city breathe at all, being underground? Somehow, there had to be air blowing in from above, through air shafts or something.

"Ventilation," she murmured, frowning. Mark sat watching her.

It had to be the same way the cars filtered unclean air to produce breathable air. Perhaps she could get it to blow _out_? Just enough to clear the damn fog, anyway, just enough to see.

Rose nodded to herself and went over to the car's console, studying it. She flipped the settings on her screwdriver and buzzed it at the screen. She found what she was looking for a moment later and paused.

"Do you mind if I try something?" She asked Mark, who was still watching her in silence.

"Be my guest," he said, bemused.

"Thanks," Rose murmured, already digging her nails into the console to pry it open.

Her engineering skills weren't superb, but it really didn't take a genius to simply reverse the wiring. She'd learned that much in Lazarus' sonic microfield manipulator. Almost the exact same concept applied here, except now, with the screwdriver's help, she _almost_ knew what the wires did and where to put them. Like in the microfield manipulator, though, it was mostly guesswork. It was times like these when she really wished she had paid more attention to the Doctor.

When one of the wires sparked at her indignantly, Rose knew she'd gotten it right.

"That should help clear it up a bit," she muttered, crawling away from the console to peer down the hole. Mark crouched alongside her. The fog, Rose was pleased to see, was indeed fading.

"There," he said, pointing, "what are those shapes?"

Rose reared back, purely out of reflex, when a massive crab-like claw materialized, snapping at them.

"Shit," she whispered, trying to calm her frantic heart. "There's something alive down there."

"What the hell are they?" Mark asked fearfully.

Rose shook her head. Countless crab-like beings were solidifying, their eyes gleaming brightly in the murk.

"I don't recognize them," she admitted. "But they're not good."

Damn right. How the hell was she supposed to stop these things? Her heart twisted in terror on Martha's behalf. Was Martha down there, right now? God, how did things get so wrong?

There was a clatter from the top of Mark's car and Rose leapt to her feet, nerves electrified, ready for a fight. Mark looked up, too, and the top opened.

Rose scoffed. "All the rage, this new sport."

Mark was not so amused. "It's like New Times Square in here, for goodness' sake!"

Lithe, catlike feet dangled down, and a slender, billowy form slipped down beside Rose. Rose folded her arms, glowering at the new arrival.

"Rose Tyler," the cat-nun greeted, waving a great big gun around like it was a toy. "Now, _you_ are a hard woman to find."

"No guns!" Mark screeched. "I'm not having guns!"

The cat barely spared him a glance. "I only brought this in case of pirates," she told him, then turned to Rose. "Rose, you've got to come with me."

Rose had not stopped scowling. She had a bad feeling about this. Like a bitchy trampoline had once said, _Never trust a nun, never trust a nurse, and _never_ trust a cat_. She wasn't sure what she had against cats, really - she'd always been an animal lover, taking in strays, especially cats. But lately cats just rankled her instincts, like she was a dog that had to chase them up a tree or something. Oh God, she thought, horrified; another "wolf" reference. Even her brain was against her, and she better say something before it thought something else that was really stupid.

"Who are you?" she demanded of the nun.

The cat smiled at her and Rose relaxed - slightly. Maybe this one wasn't a threat. Maybe cats in the under-city were nicer than the ones above. Maybe she wasn't a wolf that had a thing against cat after all. _Argh_.

"You haven't aged at all," said the cat-nun. "Time has been less kind to me."

After a moment of scrutinization, Rose let her folded arms drop.

"Novice Hame?" She ventured. They all looked the same to her, so she couldn't be sure.

"The one," Novice Hame inclined her head.

Rose's scowl reappeared. "Good to see a familiar face, I suppose. But what the hell do you want this time? Perhaps infesting innocents with disease through all this smog?"

Mark was looking back and forth between them in shock. Novice Hame sighed regretfully.

"Yes, Rose Tyler, I deserve your anger. I've sought forgiveness for so many years, under his guidance. And if you come with me, I might finally be able to redeem myself."

Rose was already shaking her head.

"No," she snarled. "I'm not going anywhere. I don't know what the hell has been going on since the Doctor and me were here, but do you _see_ that?" She jabbed a finger at the hole in the car without looking. Novice Hame flinched and glanced down. "My friend is down there!"

"You've got to come with me right now!" Novice Hame insisted.

Rose mimed hissing like an angry cat. Bitch. "Oh yeah? Well, I think you should come with _us_. Mark, buckle up, we've got three now."

"I'm sorry, Rose," said Novice Hame. "But the situation is even worse than you can imagine." With that, she grabbed Rose's wrist and, before she could react, pressed a button on her green armband. "Transport."

Rose struggled to free her arm. "Don't even think about it!" she yelled at the cat.

But despite her efforts, the car fell away around them and Rose disappeared with Novice Hame in a flash of light.

A few seconds later, Rose was rubbing her bum and wincing. Damn transmats. Her head felt fuzzy. Fucking things always messed with her head.

"Ow..." she muttered as she picked herself up off the floor, scanning her new surroundings with no small amount of irritation.

It was an immensely dusty room that appeared as though it had not been cared for in decades. Sunlight streamed brokenly upon a mess of mish-mashed wires and what looked to Rose like pieces of junk; Rose assumed that she had been transported above ground.

"Great," she said darkly, seething. "Now you can go get Martha, Novice Hame."

"I only had the power for one trip."

Rose snorted. "Bullshit. You can _get_ more, for all I care. You _will_ go get her."

"I can't."

"Where the hell are we, anyway?" Rose asked, kicking a piece of decaying metal. It fell apart under the slight pressure, making her jump back in surprise that she tried to hide from Novice Hame.

"High above, in the over-city."

That was what Rose had thought, but having it confirmed ignited a fire. Rose looked up, daring to hope.

"Good," she snapped. "Then take me to someone who's in charge. I've got a right earful to give them about this. Those people down there on the motorway are trapped. _Trapped!_"

Novice Hame was undeterred and calm as ever. "We're in the Senate right now, Rose Tyler. May the goddess Santori bless them."

Rose stood still.

"_What_?"

Novice Hame looked up and Rose followed her gaze. The immensely dusty room was an immensely vast hall in which they were surrounded by rows and rows of rising seats, like in senate halls she'd seen on the telly. At each and every single one was a decomposed, whitewashed skeleton. They looked as if they'd merely laid down to sleep.

"What the hell?" She murmured, inching closer before she realized her feet were moving.

"They died, Rose," said Novice Hame, sounding supremely sad. "The city died."

"How long?" Rose demanded. She knelt before one of the skeletons and examined it carefully.

"Twenty-four years."

Rose frowned. It was the year one billion fifty-three. When she and the doctor had come here, it was the year one billion twenty-three. They hadn't been gone long before this happened, and they hadn't seen any sign of such devastation even starting. Granted, they'd been a bit busy at the time, but still, these things generally built up over time.

She looked away from the skeleton. She was determined to blame this on Novice Hame, somehow. Why was a question she couldn't answer. Perhaps she just wanted to avoid blaming herself for something she should have seen before.

"What happened?" It didn't come out as antagonistic as she would have liked.

Whatever _had _happened might give her clue as to how to save the city – and thus, Martha, which was her priority for now. Once Martha was safe, she could worry about everyone else. If she lost Martha, Rose wasn't sure she would have the strength to cope with anything else.

"A new chemical. A new mood. They called it Bliss."

Novice Hame went over to the skeleton Rose had been looking at and retrieved a circular disc-like object. Rose recognized it as one of those mood-things she'd seen in Pharmacy Town. Like the Forget that Silva had nearly used to erase the memory of her parents. Rose's hatred for the place and the drugs sold there surged. So did her irrational hatred for the cat-nun. Why couldn't she have done anything to stop this? Why, of all people, had she survived? It couldn't be a coincidence, and Hame was looking awfully guilty the longer Rose stared at her. But something in the cat's voice stayed her judgment,

"Everyone tried it," said Hame. "They couldn't stop. A virus mutated inside the compound and became airborne. Everything perished – even the virus, in the end. It killed the world in seven minutes flat. There was just enough time to close down the walkways and the flyovers, sealing off the under-city. Those people on the motorway aren't lost, Rose Tyler. They were saved."

Well, crap. Her anger thus utterly deflated, Rose floundered for something she could do with that information.

"So everything's on automatic?" Rose asked for confirmation.

"There's not enough power to get them out. We did all we could to stop the system from choking."

Rose's right brow arched skyward.

"'We'?" She repeated. Which brought up another good point... "How exactly did you live, if you're up here?"

Novice Hame's expression lightened.

"He protected me. And he has waited for you and the Doctor, these long years."

Most startling of any of the events today, Rose felt a low, growling presence deep in her head. It made her feel like her brain was vibrating. Before she could shove the presence as far away from her as she could muster, it spoke her name in a familiar voice that made her brain muscles relax.

"Rose Tyler."

Rose blinked, and turned around slowly. Hidden by a heaping pile of junk was a large tank containing what could only be called a gigantic, wrinkly, big-lipped face. It was the Face of Boe. Rose walked warily over to the tank and stood a few feet from it.

"The Face of Boe," she acknowledged, with some confusion. She looked into its enormous eyes and found nothing but kindness and a kind of indefinable kinship. She felt as if she had known this face for years.

"I knew you would come," rumbled the telepathic voice of the Face of Boe. Rose rubbed her head, frowning at the bizarre sensation; like her brain was being massaged by bits of soft gravel. It hadn't felt like that the last time she'd been faced with this ancient creature, though he'd spoken telepathically then as well. She crouched beside the tank so she didn't have to look down at it.

"Did you, really? Why's that, then?"

"Back in the old days," spoke Novice Hame, "I was made his nurse as penance for my sins." Rose looked at the cat-nun from over her shoulder, keeping her expression carefully clear of prejudice. Hame smiled sadly as if she understood Rose's prejudice when Rose herself did not. "It seems that the legends were wrong. It was not the Doctor who was meant to be here, but you."

Something squeezed Rose's chest, constricting it so tightly it was hard to breathe.

"What legends?"

"Old stories," said Hame. "It's said that the Face of Boe will impart a great secret to one who is like him. A wanderer. One without a home. A lonely god."

Rose sucked in a breath. That did, in fact, perfectly describe the Doctor.

"But it is clear," Hame added, "that the honor shall be bestowed upon another wanderer. A lonely goddess."

Rose shook her head. A tear slipped unnoticed down one cheek and she instantly looked down at her feet to hide it.

"I am no goddess."

"I beg to differ," said the Face of Boe. Rose turned her attention back to him. If she didn't know better, she could have sworn his voice sounded like it was teasing. "We two are much more alike than the Doctor is like either of us. Novice Hame is correct, Rose."

Rose bit her lip. "What do you mean?"

Boe smiled. Again, Rose was given a very strange impression as though she had known the Face of Boe for much longer than she actually had. As if she had seen that particular smile before, many times in fact. But if Novice Hame was right, then the Face of Boe knew all along that he would not be telling the Doctor his great secret. Time travel was weird in that way.

"Do you even know what happened to him?"

"Yes," Boe uttered patiently. Another tear escaped Rose's eye.

He added no more, and Rose slowly nodded, dropping her head at the end. She couldn't speak for the iron lump blocking her throat.

"I have lived this long thanks only to you," the Face of Boe intoned after a moment of silence.

"How is that possible?" Rose whispered, looking at him, searching his face for clues. His huge eyes never blinked, but she didn't find this unnerving. Rather, it was almost a comfort, for that gaze to be settled so naturally upon her.

"It is due to circumstances far beyond your control," he said. "It was not your fault. I want you to remember that, when you see me again."

"What happened to you?" Rose forced out, pushing aside confusion at that last statement. She had to figure out why Boe seemed to need her help, first.

The Face of Boe, however, was getting weaker.

"..._Failing._"

"He protected me from the virus," Novice Hame explained, "by shrouding me in his smoke. But with no one to maintain it, the City's power died. The under-city would have fallen to the sea."

"So he saved them." Rose concluded. She could understand that.

"The Face of Boe wired himself into the mainframe. He's giving his life force just to keep things running."

Rose frowned. "But...why didn't you ever ask anyone for help?"

"The last act of the Senate was to declare New Earth unsafe. The automatic quarantine lasts for one hundred years."

Suddenly, she felt guilty. And very, very tired. She should never have blamed Hame for anything, and doing so at all made her feel stupid and infinitely small, now.

"So you stayed here. Alone."

"We had no choice."

Yes, Rose realized that _now_.

"Save them, Rose." The Face of Boe peered up at her. "Save them."

Yeah, she'd gathered that that was why she was here. But what the _hell_? How was she supposed to save the under-city when there was no power?

She rubbed her head again with hand and began pacing back and forth, thinking fiercely.

"I'm not the Doctor," she complained absently. "I don't know what I can do that you can't."

Well, that wasn't true. There were plenty of things she could do that neither Novice Hame nor the Face of Boe could, but that wasn't point. Bad Wolf couldn't help her now without frying her brains, and she rather needed those at the moment.

Hame had said that the city had run out of power. All right, but how did that power run in the first place? People looked after certain machinery. The city needed people. She had to free those people, but there was no power to do that.

What a vicious cycle.

How could she conjure power out of thin air...without using Bad Wolf?

Okay, skipping that... Assuming that she somehow found a power source, what would she do with it? Free the people of the under-city, of course. How were they trapped? The fly-overs had been closed, sealing it off. So to free them, she'd need to open up the ground that covered them.

Her engineering skills, Rose decided firmly, were next on her list for development. Well, right after DNA stuff. And stuff of the universe stuff. It was a damn good thing the TARDIS had such a huge library. And that she didn't need any sleep.

She sighed. That sort of thinking wouldn't get her anywhere. Martha needed her help _now_.

Rose bit her lip and turned to the mish-mash of junk strewn about the room – remnants of the city's mainframe, she realized. Presumably, she could find all that she needed here. What would the Doctor do? Jerry-rig a power source, no doubt. She didn't know how to that. But her greatest strength was her ability to improvise in times of need. Her thoughts spun out of control, analyzing, debating, throwing away theories as quickly as she came up with them. Was this how the Doctor always felt? _Focus, Rose._

Finally, she had an idea of what needed to be done and, _maybe_, how to do it. Her lessons with the TARDIS were proving utterly invaluable now. She's have to use every last bit of knowledge she'd gleaned from the ship and its library in order to pull this off. All assuming, of course, a power source magically leaped out of nowhere and right into her face.

She'd just handed Novice Hame a thick piece of tubing to hold when it hit her, hard. She turned to stare unblinkingly at the Face of Boe, who stared back just as calmly.

"No," she mouthed, unable to completely voice her horror. He said nothing, just gave her that disturbingly comforting stare. Rose swallowed, then nodded once to herself. It was his choice, wasn't it? "Right," she whispered to no one in particular. She jogged along the tubing and got back to work, trying not to think about what her realization meant.

She had just managed to get to the controls she needed, was rotating a knob, muttering under her breath what most likely sounded like nonsense to Novice Hame and The Face of Boe but was actually rough, untranslated Gallifreyan (which the TARDIS wouldn't translate, which was why Rose had made her mission to learn the language, seeing as it was written all over the TARDIS databanks), and waving the sonic screwdriver at another section, when it was time. And she knew it. She bit her lip and waved the screwdriver over the console again, just to make sure.

Yep. Transformers were completely blocked. There was just no way to invert the risidual energy through a nonexistent electricity bed. Even her limited knowledge in the field could tell her that much. And there was absolutely nothing she could do about that fact. Maybe the Doctor could – he was brilliant – but there was only so much she could do before it just became flat-out impossible.

She pulled a lever that would have activated everything, and was not surprised when it didn't work.

Rose walked calmly to the Face of Boe and knelt at his side. She rested her forehead on the glass.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

"I give you my last," Boe responded. He let out a long breath that rattled hoarsely in his throat. Rose heard – no, _felt_ – everything power up. She stood up, turned around, and flicked the switch a second time. Novice Hame began spinning the wheel next to the Face of Boe under Rose's instruction.

In her mind's eye, she could envision what was happening. The sky was slowly opening up to those in the under-city. It was cracking wide open as Hame spun that wheel, letting in sunlight they hadn't seen for twenty-four years. Rose turned to the viewing screen of the Senate room. She flicked it with her fingers and it flickered to life.

"Hi, sorry, no Sally Calypso this evening. Don't think she's actually existed for a while, in fact. I'm Rose Tyler, and I know you've noticed by now that the roof of the motorway has been opened."

She took a deep breath, glancing at the Face of Boe and forcing herself not to lose her compure.

"So, go on then," she said loudly. "Rev 'em up! Every single one of you, right now, listening in, drive _up!_ Drive up, and don't stop, get out there! You're free!"

She flicked the screwdriver at the device powering the screen, rerouting the feed to a particular car.

"And you lot, in car four six five diamond six! Drive _up_. You've got above access now, so go, go up!"

She flicked the screwdriver again.

"Go, Brannigan. I told you, you got the world waiting up here for ya."

Rose looked out the window, managing to smile briefly at the familiar spires of the over-city.

"The city of New New York. And it's as beautiful as ever."

Not waiting for a response, she flicked the screwdriver again, this time longer, changed settings, and flicked it again. The bay of Martha's kidnappers' car appeared on the screen.

"Car four six five diamond six, I've just set a flight path for you. Welcome to the New New York Senate."

"_On my way!"_ called Martha over the transmitter.

"See ya in a bit," Rose agreed, beyond relieved to hear Martha's voice.

"Rose!"

Novice Hame had no more need to turn that wheel and was leaning over the Face of Boe. Rose's face fell. She could hear Boe's tank beginning to crack. She inhaled and turned around slowly.

Slowly, the case shattered around them. Hame flinched. Rose joined Hame next to Boe and gently touched his cheek with one hand.

"Rose?" Martha called.

"Here," Rose replied, though her voice cracked.

"What happened out there?" Martha asked as she came over to them. Rose heard her stop and knew she's seen the Face of Boe and Novice Hame. "What's that?"

Rose closed her eyes briefly on the flash of hot, irrational anger that pulsed through her. Martha didn't understand. Couldn't.

"He's known as the Face of Boe," she said softly, stroking Boe's cheek with a thumb. "You can say hello, he won't bite."

"Not unless she asks..." the Face of Boe rasped weakly.

Rose ducked her head to hide a smile that barely managed to make it onto her face. The joke seemed well-worn and no less amusing.

"And this is Hame. She's a cat, but don't worry. She's made up for that."

"Thanks," Novice Hame said softly, with only a hint of sarcasm.

"The Face of Boe saved you," Rose said to Martha. "Not me."

"My lord gave his life to save the city," Novice Hame agreed. Martha knelt beside Hame. Her eyes spoke all the volume of gratitude and awe that needed to be expressed. "And now he's dying."

"No," Rose fervently denied, though she knew it was true. "He can't. He said he'd see me again, and I believe him."

The words were empty. She knew how time travel worked, after all.

The Face of Boe chuckled in agreement with her innermost thoughts. "It is good to breathe the air once more."

"Who is he?" Martha asked, so innocently curious it made Rose want to weep.

Rose swallowed. She knew who he was, but she didn't know. Like an actor she saw on telly, the name was just on the tip of her tongue, but she wouldn't be able to spit it out without someone else saying it for her.

"I...don't know. But it's said that he's lived for billions of years, yeah?" She looked intently at Boe. "And you won't give up now. You can't."

"Everything has its time," the Face of Boe protested gently. "You know that, old friend, better than most."

"Old friend?" Rose repeated. "I've barely met you."

Boe chuckled again. "No, you met me before. Before you ever came to this planet. Back on Old Earth, you knew me well. Better than most. But that time has passed for me now."

"The legend says more," Novice Hame prompted gently.

"It's not that time," Rose insisted. "You said I'd see you again."

"Not like this," the Face of Boe agreed, and Rose understood. Boe had seen her more times than she had seen him, at this point in each of their timestreams. Time was weird like that. The Face of Boe must have met her for the first time in the future of her timestream, just as he had met her for the last time in her present.

The relativity of time didn't make anything easier. She knew the Face of Boe, like he'd said, she just didn't quite know _how_.

"It says that the Face of Boe will speak his final secret to a weary traveller."

"No," said Rose less firmly and with more insistent desperation. She closed her eyes briefly and concentrated upon one finger. A rapidly thinning thread appeared tied there, a glowing tendril which disappeared into the face of Boe, enveloping him in a soft golden light like sunlight fading beyond the horizon of a long day. She bit her lip. The thread was so thin she couldn't read anything more from it, even concentrating until her head felt as if it was going shatter.

"Will you at least tell me who you are?" Rose asked him desperately, tearing her eyes from the thread. She needed to know.

The Face of Boe smiled. "You already know who I am, Rose."

Rose shook her head. Tears were streaming down her cheeks.

"Whoever you are," she said, "you can't leave me. You know what it's like. You know...you know what I am, what I can do."

Yes, she saw that much in his eyes. He knew Bad Wolf. Hell, he knew that she had just looked at his timestream.

And then Rose gasped.

"You've traveled with the Doctor before," she concluded, her heart beating wildly. Martha and Novice Hame were watching her curiously. "You..." God, she choked on her next words, but she _had_ to get the out before it was too late. "You've traveled with _me_ before."

The Face of Boe did not reply.

"Oh, Jack," she whispered. Her tears flowed freely. "You _lived_."

"Yes."

"I'm so sorry. I didn't know. He...he told me..."

"I know."

"_How_?"

"There's no more time, Rose," the Face of Boe – _Jack_ – said gently. "And I do have something to tell you."

Rose drew in a breath, shoved the tears from her eyes.

"What is it?"

"A sun will burn where the woman weeps. Drums sound to the beat of two hearts and the world spins to rain. You _are_ alone."

Rose couldn't help but chuckle. "Really, Jack? So cryptic? You didn't used to talk like that."

Jack, aged beyond comprehension, replied, "Things change, Rose. A lot."

She leaned forward slowly and kissed his large cheek.

"I really am sorry."

He looked up at her with huge, sad, understanding eyes that were slowly closing.

"Don't be. Goodbye, Rose. See you in hell."

The last words sounded so strange coming from such an ancient being. To Rose, they meant more than thousands of lines of poetry could say.

**ΘΣ … ΘΣ**

They walked slowly through the grungy, deserted alley of Pharmacy Town. Rose was pleased to see that it was, in fact, deserted.

"All closed down," Martha spoke her thoughts aloud.

"Happy?" Rose asked.

Martha smiled. "Happy happy."

Rose forced herself to smile back.

"So I guess New New York will get to start over," she said, to fill the silence on their way back to the TARDIS. "Novice Hame should keep them in line."

"That's what we need," Martha agreed with false enthusiasm, "cats in charge!"

Rose couldn't quite manage to laugh. Martha stopped walking. Rose squeezed her eyes shut and halted in her tracks.

"What did he mean?" Martha asked, as Rose had known she would eventually. "And who was he, really? The Face of Boe? You called him Jack."

Rose opened her eyes and turned around.

"I don't know what he meant."

"He said that you're alone." Martha seemed vaguely offended by that. "What am I, chopped liver?"

"Course not," Rose assured her, lips twitching despite her mood. "Come on, let's get back to the TARDIS. I'm sure you're tired."

She turned on her heel and began to walk away, aware after only a few steps that Martha hadn't followed. Another pulse of white-hot anger had to be quickly smothered.

Rose faced Martha again to see that she'd righted a fallen chair and was sitting prissily upon it, arms folded and head tilted to one side, her eyes a book of challenges. Rose bit back a deep, world-weary sigh and arched an eyebrow at her companion.

"You stayin' here, then?"

"Till you talk to me properly, yes," said Martha. "That stuff he said. What you said. What does it mean? Who was he to you? You said he traveled with you and the Doctor."

Now Rose did sigh. She hooked her thumbs in her jeans' pockets.

"Honestly Martha, I don't know what he meant, and that other stuff doesn't matter."

"Right." Martha nodded, like she finally understood something. "Just like that thing at Bethlam Hospital. Or whatever happened to you on Omega that you won't talk about, that made you change your hair. Or what you were really crying over after you killed Lazarus."

Rose clenched her jaw. "Martha, I told you all about the Doctor, what happened to him. Isn't that enough?"

"But you never said how it affected you," said Martha.

"Isn't that rather obvious? Maybe I just don't _want_ to talk," Rose snapped. "Did you ever think about that?"

"The Face of Boe was wrong, you know," Martha said, unaffected by Rose's anger. "You're not alone."

"What, you think I want to talk to _you_," Rose sneered before she could stop herself, infusing as much venom into her words as she could. She needed Martha to back _off_.

Martha either didn't notice or didn't care. "I know you don't want to. I'm just letting you know: you're not alone."

And just then, Rose thought she was going mad, because she could swear she could hear music. She lifted her head to it and heard the noise growing in volume. Then she realized that it was the city singing one more hymn together. Martha's face reflected her mystification. Rose watched her silently as she reacted to the music.

"It's the city," Martha breathed, listening. "They're singing."

Maybe it was the intensity of the moment. Maybe it was because of something Brannigan had told her. _"We're not abandoned, Rose Tyler. Not while we have each other."_ Maybe it was Sally Calypso and the beautiful New New York shoreline and apple grass and Novice Hame and Jack Harkness. Maybe it was just because Martha was right, and Rose was tired of fighting. Maybe Rose was tired of being alone. She'd taken Martha as a companion because it felt _right_, because she'd gotten lonely and because her life was hard and because she didn't have _him_. So maybe, _maybe_, somewhere in these reasons could be found an explanation for why Rose opened her mouth and began to talk.

"I met Jack," she started, "in the middle of a war. World War II, to be precise. He saved me from falling off the rope of barrage balloon during a German air raid." She quirked a small, sad smile. "I was wearing a Union Jack T-shirt."

Martha was staring at her with rapt attention.

Rose didn't plan on telling her much. Certainly nothing about Bad Wolf, or anything more about the Doctor. She couldn't. She just wasn't ready. But she could tell her about the Face of Boe - about Captain Jack Harkness.


	13. Return of Skaro Part I

**This was my favorite episode to write so far. Enjoy!**

* * *

**Episode Seven  
****Return of Skaro, Part I**

Rose sat alone in a darkened room, the only light shining ghostly green on her pale face, gleaming off of her dark, flowing hair. She stood leaning against a coral pillar, watching, waiting, making sure she was leaving nothing out. Things were happening fast, she thought, and time, which could be rewritten, was reaching an irreversible point she could not forget even if she tried. (And oh, how she had tried.)

She smiled faintly as she remembered the first time she had met her new companion, Martha Jones. It was not actually in a hospital, as Martha surely thought (for now), but on a dingy street one cold evening. She had been sure, when she saw Martha dawdling innocently among a batch of medical students, that timelines – or the fates – were conspiring to condemn both them. It was one reason Rose had tried so hard to push Martha away. She knew, mostly, what was coming, and didn't want Martha to have to suffer the weight of the universe on her shoulders. It wasn't fair of anyone to ask that of her, as Rose knew she would have to soon. Too soon.

Rose focused her attention on the screen.

"_Martha, before I change, before I forget everything, there are some things that you need to know..._"

Rose sighed. She listened to the message all the way through. At the end, she realized she was forgetting something. She stood before the camera and telepathically nudged the TARDIS into starting it. "And...thank you, Martha. For everything." She smiled, and the recording finished.

She looked away from the screen and sniffed, uncomfortable with the feeling of warmth in her chest. She leaned forward and plucked from the jumpseat a transparent green CD case. She opened it, pulled out a disc, and put it in its place on the TARDIS. Her frozen image on the screen, smiling, flickered before vanishing completely. The TARDIS had tucked it deep into an archive inaccessible to anyone but Rose until the time was right.

Rose concentrated briefly, and the TARDIS complied with her silent order, projecting an image from the console as it was read from the disc she had placed on it. The hologram seemed for a moment to be the only thing in existence, the sole source of light in a room too dark for humans to navigate without stubbing a toe. Rose returned to her silent vigil against a pillar, folding her arms across her chest.

The image was an exact rendering of Rose. It was not precisely a recording, though. It was more of an imprint of her own personality, burned onto the disc to reassure and comfort Martha should the worst thing happen and Martha should have to return home without Rose. The TARDIS had been programmed to appear on a nondescript street corner near Martha's apartment once the disc was inserted. The hologram would explain to Martha that she would have to abandon the TARDIS where it landed, get on with her life, and forget that Rose had either died or been forced to leave her.

She couldn't deny that although the Doctor may have been infuriating when he had basically done the same thing to her, it was a sure-fire way to keep Martha out of extreme danger if they got into something they couldn't get out of. Rose didn't think that Martha would open the TARDIS with a big yellow truck, even if she thought to do so, because for one thing she knew that the TARDIS wouldn't let her. Rose was much..._closer_ to the TARDIS than the Doctor had ever been, inextricably so, and the TARDIS would never let Martha do anything that would put her in harm's way, even if she was trying to save Rose from some horrible fate or other.

After viewing the message and deciding that it sufficiently fulfilled its purpose, Rose lifted the disc and replaced it in its case. She closed the jewel case with a snap and placed it under the cushion in the jumpseat.

Just in time, too, for Martha burst in the door at that instant, wearing khaki jeans and a long purple sweater. With her entrance the room brightened, both literally and figuratively, and Rose blinked into the sudden light.

"So!" Martha announced her arrival loudly. "I'm all rested up, and you never rest, so where and when's our next adventure gonna be?"

Rose had to smile at her exuberence.

"Well," said Rose, "I thought you might like to compare New New York to Old New York."

Martha grinned. "What year?"

"Right about nineteen-thirty or so. Are you ready?"

"For anything!" She laughed.

Rose sure as bloody hell hoped so.

After a few rapid calculations in collaboration with the TARDIS, Rose determined her coordinates and 'dialed' them in. Earth was the easiest planet to travel to, because one: it was Rose's native world, and two: the TARDIS had been there so often the ship considered it a home. In a few minutes, the TARDIS wheezed its way to Liberty Island, nineteen-thirty.

Martha stepped out first, too excited to wait for Rose, and found herself standing before a large white wall. Rose joined her.

"Say Martha," Rose winked; "have you met my friend?"

Martha looked up and gasped.

"Oh my God, it's the Statue of Liberty!" She exclaimed.

Rose touched the base with five fingers. In all her travels with the Doctor, she'd never seen the famed figure, and couldn't help but be awed by the sheer magnitude of its size and importance. It was such a well-known and potent symbol that Rose was sure it would endure until the very end.

They walked together to the edge of the island to look out at Manhattan. On the way, Martha was a bundle of energy that seemed bursting to explode.

"That's brilliant!" she said happily. "I've always wanted to go to New York. I'm mean real New York, not the new, new, new, new, new..." her voice trailed off; she'd lost count.

"Well, there it is," said Rose, gesturing grandly. The Atlantic breeze brought a welcome flush to her cheeks. "And feel that breeze! Isn't it great?"

"Look," Martha pointed at a mostly-finished skyscraper, "it's the Empire State Building. Not even finished yet. Wonder what all's going on in the world today..."

She stepped away from Rose to fetch a newspaper and brought it back to share it with Rose.

"November first, nineteen-thirty. Looks like you got it right, for once," Martha teased. Rose pouted at her good-naturedly. "Eighty years ago," said Martha wistfully. Rose took the paper from her and scanned the headlines. "It's funny, 'cause you see all those old newsreels in black and white like it's so far away, but here we are. It's real. It's now." Martha laughed. "Come on, you. Where do we go first?"

Rose smirked and held up the paper for Martha to look at again.

"What d'you think?"

"_Hooverville Mystery Deepens,_" Martha read. "What's Hooverville?"

Rose smirked. Engineering was sticky. She was getting along all right in theoretical astrophysics, but math was a killer. This, true history, she knew.

**ΘΣ … ΘΣ**

They meandered through Central Park, cool fresh air chilling their skin pleasantly. The sky was clear and blue, the scent of autumn crisp and clean. Rose let the peaceful moment loosen her muscles; she had a bad feeling there wouldn't be many more of them for a while.

"Herbert Hoover," said Rose to Martha, recalling a book she'd 'read and memorized' a few months ago on American history, "the thirty-first President of the United States, had his inaugeration about a year or so ago. New York used to be amazing – remember hearing about the Roaring Twenties? And then–"

"The Wall Street Crash, yeah?" Martha interrupted. "What was that, nineteen-twenty-nine?"

Rose raised her eyebrows, impressed. She wouldn't have known that without her own broad research of history and extensive time traveling. Martha was certainly smarter than she ever was, or at least she had made an effort to be more knowledgeable.

"Yeah," Rose agreed. "Stocks were great at first, prices just kept going up and investors were so happy they started speculating. Black Tuesday, all shit rolled downhill. Economy was wiped out overnight. Thousands of people lost their jobs, lost their homes, had nowhere to go. So they gathered here. Blamed everything on the president, of course, so named the place after him. Hoover Valley, or Hooverville."

"What, in Central Park?" Martha said dubiously. "They actually live _here_? In the middle of the city?"

Her answer came in the form of smelling smoke, at first. Then they saw the ramshackle lean-tos and tents and haphazard shacks of the homeless population of Manhattan. The smoke orginated from barrels that gave off precious heat. Beyond the waves of warmth that the fires generated, Rose and Martha could see people milling about the large campsite, a sort of mini-village, dressed in rags and old clothing. The people's faces were gaunt and haunted. There was an air of bitterness that made something in Rose quail in fright. There was a resigned slump to every man, woman, and child's shoulders that made her want to scream at them to fight back. These people had been abandoned. Martha shivered.

"Everyday people," said Rose quietly, less excited about it now. "No jobs. Couldn't pay up at the end of the month, so they lost everything. You only come to places like this when you haven't got anywhere else to go."

**ΘΣ … ΘΣ**

Martha swallowed hard. She knew all of this already, of course. Seeing it was another matter. She had never seen poverty so blatant and terrifying. These people didn't even know where their next meal was coming from.

As if her thoughts required a demonstration to quantify their reality, there was a commotion at one corner of Hooverville. She and Rose turned to see two men arguing over a loaf of bread.

"You thievin' low-life!" One of the men shouted. He punched the other in the nose, making him jerk backwards in pain. "You stole my fucking loaf!"

"I didn't touch it!" The other man screamed, throwing himself at the one who had accused him.

Rose looked ready to intervene, but before she could do anything, another man stepped into the fray. He was dark-skinned, stocky, and older than many of those who had gathered to watch the fight. His grizzled shadow and deep eyes gave him a solemn, ancient appearance, and the crowd parted before him. His dark eyes blazed as he exited his tent and stood before the two fighting men.

"Cut that out!" he shouted.

The men ignored him.

"Cut that out right now!" The man repeated angrily, pushing the men apart.

"He stole my bread!"

"That's enough!" The older man silenced him with a glare as much as his voice, before turning to the would-be thief. "Did you take it?"

"I don't know what happened," said the thief, his eyes impossibly wide. "He just went crazy."

To illustrate this fact, the other man took a lunge at him. He was held back, barely, his eyes wild with rage.

"That's enough!" The older man barked. He narrowed his eyes at the thief. "Now think real careful before you lie to me."

The thief's face crumpled. "I'm starvin', Solomon."

Solomon thrust out his hand commandingly. The thief grimaced, his face pinched as if in pain, and pulled the bread out from under his coat.

"We're all starvin'," Solomon told him, and everyone at large. He broke the loaf in half. Rose nodded in approval. "We all got families somewhere." He handed each man a half. Martha glanced at Rose to see her eyes sparkling. "No stealin' and no fightin'. You know the rules. Thirteen years ago I fought in the Great War. A lot of us did. And the only reason we got through was because we stuck together! No matter how bad things get, we still act like human beings. It's all we got."

At the conclusion of this impromptu pep talk, the crowd dispersed. The men who'd fought shot each other venomous glares but silently walked away in opposite directions.

Rose touched Martha's shoulder. She stepped up to face Solomon and Martha stood at her side.

"I guess that makes you boss, then?"

Solomon stared at them.

"And, uh, who might you be?"

Rose flashed her psychic paper. "Doctor Martha Jones," she tilted her head in Martha's direction, "and I'm just Rose."

Martha tried not to look too surprised at her promotion.

"A doctor," Solomon scoffed. "Well, we got, uh, stockbrokers, we got a lawyer, but you're the first doctor. Neighborhood gets classier by the day."

He stuck his hands over a barrel to warm them. Martha had folded her arms to conserve warmth. Rose appeared unaffected by the November weather.

"How many people live here?" Martha asked. Hooverville was quite large.

"At any one time," answered Solomon, "hundreds. No place else to go. But I will say this about Hooverville: we are a truly equal society. Black, white, all the same. All starving." He laughed; it sounded hollow. Martha tried not to wince. "So you're welcome. Both of you. But tell me, Doctor Jones, you're a woman of learning, right?" Martha nodded, but he wasn't looking for an answer. "Explain this to me," he pointed up at the towering Empire State Building. "That there's going to be the tallest building in the world. How come they can do that, and we got people starving in the heart of Manhattan?"

He had a way of rousing the spirit, thought Martha wryly.

Rose drew Martha aside, out of Solomon's range of hearing. Villagers went about their day without any regard for the new strangers in their midst.

"Something's off," Rose confided to Martha.

Martha rolled her eyes.

"Really? And I thought we were just here sight-seeing?"

Rose smirked at her sarcasm. She waved the newspaper in her hand in front of Martha's face.

"We need to ask Solomon about this. But I want you to do it."

Martha frowned. "What do you mean?"

Rose took a deep breath. She looked deeply troubled about something. "I need to lay low, this time. For now, at least, until I learn more. Something's not right," she reiterated, "and that something is telling me to...go unnoticed. So you're the doctor between us; you ask Solomon about what's goin' on."

Martha nodded reluctantly and took the newspaper from Rose.

They approached Solomon as he was throwing dregs out of a mug into the fire.

"So..." she started; "...men are going missing. Is this true?"

She held up the newspaper. Solomon grabbed it.

"It's true all right."

He returned to his tent and Martha followed, Rose close behind.

"But what does missing mean?" Martha asked from the entrance. "Men must come and go from here all the time. It's not like someone's keeping a register."

Solomon sat and beckoned Martha and Rose to join him.

"This is different."

"In what way?" Martha inquired.

When Solomon looked at her, his eyes were too dead to hold fear.

"Someone takes them. At night. We hear something. Someone calls out for help. By the time we get there, they're gone. Like they vanish into thin air."

"And you're sure someone's taking them?"

Solomon gave Martha a weary glare. "Doctor, when you got next to nothing, you hold onto the little you got. Your knife, your blanket, you take it with you. You don't leave bread uneaten, fire still burning."

"Have you been to the police?"

Solomon shrugged as if the answer should be obvious. "Yeah, we tried that. Another deadbeat goes missing, big deal."

Rose leaned forward. "So the question is," she said, "who's taking them and what for?"

A young man stuck his head inside the tent.

"Solomon, Mr. Diagoras is here."

Martha exchanged a look with Rose. They stood and walked out of the tent behind Solomon. Hooverville men had gathered before a clean-shaven man in an expensive-looking suit – Mr. Diagoras, Martha guessed.

"I need men," announced Mr. Diagoras. "Volunteers. I got a little work for you and you sure look like you could use the money."

Rose stiffened, looking alert as a nervous chihuahua. Martha glanced at her but went back to watching the businessman.

"Yeah," said the young man who had brought them outside, "What is the money?"

"A dollar a day."

There were some discomfited grumbles among them. Martha guessed that the salary was hardly worth volunteering for, even for those in Hooverville.

Solomon spoke up. "What's the work?"

Diagoras gave him a greasy smile. "A little trip down the sewers. Got a tunnel that collapsed and needs fixing. Any takers?"

"Bullshit," Rose whispered just loud enough for Martha to hear. "It's a trap."

"A dollar a day?" Solomon spoke again. "That's slave wage. Men don't always come back up, do they?"

"Accidents happen," Diagoras conceded with an uncaring smirk.

Rose elbowed Martha in the ribs.

"What do you mean?" Martha asked Diagoras after wincing. "What sort of accidents?"

Diagoras glared at her dismissively. "You don't need the work, woman? That's fine. Anybody else?"

Rose elbowed Martha again. She refrained from sighing.

"I'll kill you for this," she muttered as an aside to Rose as she raised her hand.

"Enough with the questions!" Diagoras snapped.

"No, no. No questions," said Martha resignedly. "I'm volunteering."

Solomon and the young man raised their hands as well, followed by Rose, who hid slightly behind Martha so that Diagoras could not readily identify her features.

**ΘΣ … ΘΣ**

In the sewers (Martha seriously vowed to do something to Rose for this), Diagoras was leading them down a stinking passageway. He stopped at a junction.

"Turn left," he directed. "Go about half a mile. Follow Tunnel 273. Fall's right ahead of you. You can't miss it."

Martha shot him a glare of distaste.

The young man who's volunteered to go with them, Frank, asked, "When do we get our dollar?"

Diagoras gave him a decidedly unpleasant look.

"When you come back up," he said.

"And if we don't come back up?" Martha asked, out of curiosity.

Diagoras seemed amused.

"Then I got no one to pay."

"We'll be back," Solomon assured everyone in general.

"Let's hope so," Martha muttered.

They started down the tunnel. Rose gave Diagoras an unfathomable, analyzing stare before turning away from him. Solomon took the lead.

"We just gotta stick together," Frank was saying. "It's easy to get lost. It's like a huge rabbit warren. You could hide an army down here."

Martha looked at him. His accent was off.

"So what about you, Frank? You're not from around these parts, are you?"

"Oh, you could talk," he said, referring to Martha's own distinctly non-American tongue. "No, no, I'm from Tennessee, born and bred."

"So how come you're here?"

Frank seemed surprised that Martha cared.

"Uh, my daddy died. Mama couldn't afford to feed us all. So, I'm the oldest, up to me to feed myself, so I put on my coat, hitched up here on the railroads. There's a whole lot of runaways in camp younger than me. From all over: Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas... Solomon keeps a lookout for us. So what about you? You're a long way from home."

Martha grinned.

"Yeah, I'm just a hitcher too."

A sort of kinship seemed to form between them in that moment.

"You stick with me, you'll be all right."

Martha looked over her shoulder at Rose, who was intently studying something on her index finger. Sensing Martha's gaze, she looked up and smiled, then went back to frowning at her hand. Martha shook her head in bemusement. Rose looked up again and jerked her head at Solomon. Martha got the message; she smiled at Frank and moved to walk beside Solomon.

"So this Diagoras bloke," said Martha, "who is he?"

"A couple months ago, he was just another foreman. Now it seems like he's running most of Manhattan."

Martha frowned. "How's that, then?"

"These are strange times," Solomon said by way of answer. "A man can go from being king of the hill to the lowest of low overnight. It's just for some folks it works the other way 'round."

"Hold up!" said Rose suddenly. They all stopped. Martha watched the brunette make her way past Frank and Solomon. She was looking at something in the middle of the dirty tunnel.

As Martha looked closer, she saw a sort of...blob-thing that gave off a weird, sickly green glow. She stepped closer to it.

"Is it radioactive or something?" As she approached the...thing, she got whiff of a horrid stench and covered her nose and mouth in disgust. "It's gone off, whatever it is."

Rose didn't acknowledge her. She tucked her torch into one of her bigger-on-the-inside pockets and crouched close to the gross, unidentifiable object. She had wrinkled her nose at the smell, but seemed too intensely curious to pay much attention to her own discomfort.

Then she picked up the slime ball and held it up to her face to see it better.

"And you've got to pick it up," Martha muttered in disgust.

"That's weird," Rose muttered. "It came off something living. Shine your torch through it?"

Martha aimed the flashlight directly at the slime. It was pale green, like snot, and its membranes appeared to be somewhat transparent.

Rose ran a finger over a knotted wrinkle in the membranes and hummed, her brows furrowed worriedly. Then she nodded to herself. Martha wondered if she'd found something about it or if she just wanted everyone to think she had.

"Medical opinion?" Rose asked of Martha.

Martha had none. "It's not human, I know that."

"No," Rose agreed. She lowered the...thing. "And you know what? We've gone more than half a mile. But there's no collapse."

Martha nodded slowly. "Then why did Diagoras send us down here?" Rose winked in response. Martha wondered if she knew something. Martha looked up. "So where are we now? What's above us?"

"Manhattan."

Solomon didn't seem to have understood most of their exchange, but he did know they'd been led on by Diagoras.

"We're way beyond half a mile," he said, like they didn't know, "and there's no collapse, nothing."

"Diagoras was lying," Martha concluded.

"Of course," Rose murmured. She tucked the slime ball into her pocket. Martha gave her a repulsed grimace, which Rose dutifully ignored.

"Why did he want people to come down here?" Frank asked the million-dollar question.

Rose stood. She turned to Martha. "Martha, take these two back to Hooverville."

Before Martha could protest, there was a loud squeal from down the tunnel. They stared around at each other, startled.

"What the hell was that?" Solomon yelped.

"Hello?" Frank called.

Martha grabbed his shoulder, shushing him.

"Frank," Solomon warned.

"What if it's one of the folk gone missing?" Frank reasoned. "You'd be scared, half mad down here on your own."

"Do you think they're still alive?" Rose asked him, head tilted to one side.

"Heck, we ain't seen no bodies down here," he said. "Maybe they just got lost."

The squeals echoed toward them again.

"I know I never heard nobody make a sound like that," said Solomon. Martha privately agreed with him. Her heart was pounding hard in fright.

Rose walked forward towards the sound. Naturally.

Frank remarked, "Sounds like there's more than one of 'em."

"Look," said Solomon, shining his light down the tunnel. "That way."

Through the beam, Martha could just make out a huddled silhouette.

"Who are you?" Solomon called.

"Are you lost?" said Frank. "Can you understand me? I've been thinkin' about folk lost..."

He began to walk forward but Rose stopped him.

"No, Frank, don't. Stay here. Let me have a look." She ventured closer to the figure. "He's right, though, you know. I'd hate to be stuck here on my own."

The thing, whatever it was, squealed. Martha thought it sounded remarkably like a pig, but she didn't want to say so in case she offended the creature.

"We know how to get out," Rose offered. "Out into the daylight. You can come with us." She crouched low and pulled out her torch so they could see the creature's face.

Well, thought Martha. Maybe they wouldn't take it as an insult after all.

"Is, uh, that some kind of carnival mask?" Solomon asked nervously, staring at a piglike face on a manlike body.

"No," said Rose, obviously certain about something. She touched the pig man's arm. "I'm sorry," she said. "I'm sorry for whoever did this to you. Listen, though. I can help. You just need to tell me who it was."

Martha gulped as shadows fell on Rose.

"Rose, I think you better get back here."

Pig men began to fill the tunnel. Rose stood up quickly. She backed up, staring at the creatures. Their eyes were small, blank. Martha couldn't detect any sort of emotion or anything from them. As Rose retreated, the pigs followed.

"They're following you," Martha whispered unnecessarily.

"Yeah, I got that, thanks."

"Now what?"

Rose didn't take her eyes off the pig men.

"Well...what do we normally do, Martha? Run!"

As a four-headed whole, they spun down the tunnel and sprinted away from the creatures. When they reached an intersection, they skidded to a stop.

"Where are we going?" Martha asked Rose.

"This way!" She turned right and they followed, the pig men still chasing after them. "Get up the ladder!" Rose shouted from ahead.

She scrambled up and used the sonic screwdriver to open the hatch. She shoved it open and stood at the hole looking down at the others as they too raced for the escape.

Martha leapt up after her, but Solomon paused when Frank picked up a metal rod and faced the pig men.

"Frank!" he shouted as he climbed the ladder.

Frank began to race for the ladder and Solomon and Rose reached down to help him.

"C'mon, Frank, c'mon!"

They grabbed his hands.

"Don't let go, Frank, you can make it!" Rose encouraged.

No sooner had the words left her mouth than Frank was ripped brutally from her grip and down the ladder.

"Frank!"

"No!" Rose screamed.

She launched herself at the hole, intending to dive into it head-first, but Solomon grabbed her arm. Rose's leg lashed out and there was a loud _crack_! Blood spurted from Solomon's mouth and his grip loosened. Rose threw herself towards the pig men, who were starting to climb up the ladder, but Martha gritted her teeth, lunged forward and caught Rose around the waist, dragging her feet they both lunged clumsily forward. Rose twisted and nearly broke free, but Solomon slammed the lid closed on a pig man's snout.

"We can't go after him," said Solomon, wiping blood from his split lip. Martha was sure she saw a cracked tooth, too.

"We have to go back down!" Rose insisted, squirming in Martha's grip. She was a lot stronger than she looked. Martha would not relent, however. If Martha was certain about anything, it was that she needed Rose, and she was damned if she was going to let a bunch of pigs take her away. "We can't just leave him!"

"No, I'm not losing anybody else! Those creatures were from Hell! From Hell itself! If we go after them, they'll take us all! There's nothing we can do. I'm sorry."

Rose stopped struggling and Martha cautiously lowered her arms but stayed close by Rose just in case.

At that moment, a woman stepped into sight from behind a shelf and aimed a gun at them.

"All right then," said the blonde in an outrageous accent, "put 'em up."

Martha rose her hands obediently into the air.

The woman cocked the gun she was holding and gestured.

"Hands in the air and no funny business." Rose and Solomon put their hands up. "Now tell me, you schmucks, what've you done with Lazlo?"

The three of them exchanged puzzled glances.

"Er, who's Lazlo?" Martha asked.

The woman rolled her eyes and led them into an adjacent room. It looked like a dressing room or something.

"Lazlo's my boyfriend, or was my boyfriend until two weeks ago. No letter, no goodbye, no nothin'. And I'm not stupid," she waved the gun around. Martha, Rose, and Solomon jumped. "I know some guys are pigs but not my Lazlo." They eyed the gun warily as it was held carelessly. Martha was sure they were all paying more attention to the damn gun than to the crazy lady's words. "I mean, what kinda guy asks you meet his mother before he vamooses?"

"Er, it might help if you put that down," said Rose, eyes trained on the gun.

The woman looked confused. "Huh?" She looked at her hand saw the gun. "Oh, sure." She tossed it on a chair. They jumped again, and when it didn't go off, they relaxed with a collective sigh of relief. "Oh, come on," said the woman, seeing their faces. "It's not real. It's just a prop. It was either that or a spear."

They must be in a theater, then. Now that their lives weren't mortally in danger, Martha could think about what the woman had said.

"What do you think happened to Lazlo?"

The woman was earnest when she said, "I wish I knew. One minute he's there, the next, zip–vanished."

"What's your name?" Rose asked.

"Tallulah."

Rose stared at her skeptically. "Tallulah."

"Three L's and an H," Tallulah agreed.

"Well, um...we can try to find Lazlo. In fact, we will. But he's not the only one."

"There are people disappearing every night," Martha added.

"And there are creatures," said Solomon, looking faint. "Such creatures."

"Look, just...just trust me, yeah? It's not safe. I need to find out what this is," Rose pulled out the slime ball she found in the sewer, "because it'll tell us who we're fighting."

Tallulah blanched and made a disgusted noise. Martha was glad _somebody_ had sense.

Rose took her blob-thing and stared at it and her index finger in the prop room. Martha half expected her to start taking radios apart or something, but Rose just sat there, watching the blob like she wanted it to perform tricks. As much as Martha trusted the woman, sometimes she wondered if there was something wrong in her head. She had seen her do some pretty eccentric things before - never sleeping and keeping a pet star-squid featured among these - but just sitting there like she expected the answer to pop out of nowhere was a tougher thing to accept. But since there was still so much that she didn't understand about the way Rose worked, Martha let it go. Solomon was not passive and joined the brunette to start the typical native-of-this-timeline interrogation.

Martha, practically dismissed for the time being, watched from the chair as Tallulah got ready for a show.

One thing she learned quickly: Tallulah talked. A lot.

"Lazlo... He'd wait for me after the show, walk me home like I was a lady. He'd leave a flower for me on my dressing table. Every day, just a single rose."

Martha stood and walked over to her.

"Haven't you reported him missing?"

"Sure. He's just a stagehand. Who cares? The management certainly don't."

"Can't you kick up a fuss or something?"

Tallulah gave her a look. "Okay, so then they fire me."

"But they'd listen to you. You're one of the stars."

At least, she seemed that way to Martha. Tallulah seemed flattered at first, then her pretty eyes darkened.

"Oh, honey, I got one stone in a backstreet revue and that's only because Heidi Chicane broke her ankles – which had nothin' to do with me whatever anybody says. I can't afford to make a fuss. If I don't make this month's rent, then before you know it, I'm in Hooverville."

Martha sighed. "Okay," she said defensively, "I get it."

Tallulah was on a slippery slope, though.

"It's the Depression, sweetie. Your heart might break, but the show goes on and if it stops, you starve. Every night I have to go out there; sing, dance, keep goin'. Hoping he's gonna come back."

Her voice cracked at the end and she closed her eyes against tears. Martha felt her heart twist and she moved to embrace Tallulah before the thought to comfort her had entered her head. Tallulah accepted the hug with more care than Martha thought she would have given anyone in that position, but then, she thought, Tallulah was certainly something else.

"I'm sorry," Martha murmured.

She gazed over Tallulah's shoulder to find Rose watching her from the prop room. Solomon had left a few minutes ago. Their eyes met. Martha could not easily define what was communicated between them in that moment, only that it was something profound. She remembered holding Rose in a similar manner not too long ago in the TARDIS console room. Maybe that was it. One corner of Rose's lips lifted slightly in acknowledgement, then she turned and left in the direction of the theater balcony.

Tallulah pulled away and wiped at her remaining tears.

"I was still lucky, though. Have you got anyone?" Tallulah's eyes were wide and curious. Martha shook her head sadly. "Maybe you're just battin' for the other team, hmm?" She winked suggestively and Martha felt blood rush to her cheeks as she realized what Tallulah had implicated.

"Er, um, _no_, I'm not..._she's_ not..." Martha stammered.

Thankfully, Tallulah only laughed. "I'm just teasin', relax. Still, ya gotta live in hope. It's the only thing that's kept me going, 'cause–" she held up a white rose from her dresser; "–look. On my dresser everyday still."

Martha took the rose, spinning the stem between her finger and thumb.

"You think it's Lazlo?"

When Tallulah answered, her voice was uncertain but Martha could see conviction in her eyes.

"I don't know. If he's still around, why's he bein' all secret like he doesn't want me to see him?"

**ΘΣ … ΘΣ**

Rose stayed out of everyone's way, incidentally where no one could bother her, and stared at the slimy blob of stinking..._something_ in her hand. The texture was familiar, somehow, which was why she kept stroking it even though it was freakin' disgusting. If she was in the TARDIS, she might be able to run a DNA scan on it – for she was sure the tissue was organic – but as it was she was stuck staring at the thing.

The bizarre 'thread readings', if that was what she was going to call them, did not help matters. She had noticed while they were in the sewers that there were several threads attached to her hand – Martha's, of course, and Solomon's, Frank's, and Diagoras's, because they were at the forefront of her mind and she was actually looking for them. But what was really confusing were six others that she could not identify - and somehow she thought that not being able to identify them was a rather extraordinary occurrence for this type of thing, not that she understood 'this type of thing' very clearly. One thread had buried itself among the pig men in the tunnels. Another, she had recently found, belonged to Tallulah. That wasn't too awfully surprising. She now knew that she had to find Lazlo, who had been engineered into a pig man, and Tallulah was probably going to invite herself along, thus connecting herself to Rose's timeline. It didn't explain how Rose could see the threads without specifically looking for them, especially given that she had not known who Tallulah was when she first saw the threads, but it did explain why she might need to see them at all.

The last four were shaped differently, and the only reason she could think of as to why was that they must not be human. The thread that had to belong to Lazlo was oddly crooked in some places, but mostly the same as the others'. But these last three disappeared into a wall or ceiling or floor wherever she was and were a darker, thicker gold. What was truly disturbing about it was that they seemed so _familiar_, as though she had seen them before and simply could not remember where.

Because there were so many different threads, it was difficult to pick just one and focus on it to the exclusion of all others. She certainly could not delve into the timestream like she had been able to do with Shani's. Rose could deduce no more information from the mini-timestreams than the general direction of their source. It was infuriating.

As she watched, frowning, one of the inhuman, dark gold threads began to wind itself around Diagoras's thread. Now this was interesting. What was going on here? A few seconds passed, and the two threads grew closer and closer together. The dark gold of the one brightened and the other thickened until they became something new, something altogether different from the other dark threads, the human threads, or Lazlo's thread. The process wasn't complete just yet, but it was as if, Rose's gut supplied for her, a new race was being born.

A sharp pain lanced through her head and Rose squeezed her eyes shut, clenching her fists. Behind her eyelids, she could see a blinding amalgam of colliding timestreams. Enduring the pain, she found the one that belonged to Martha, avoiding her own, which was unbearably bright, and watched the collisions of streams. At one intersection, there were tiny threads of dark gold running through the normal bright gold timestream. Rose forced herself closer despite the resistance she met and peered closely at the intersection.

They were identical to the strange threads she'd seen attached to her hand.

With that realization, her head seemed to set itself aflame. She gasped aloud but hung tight to her sub-reality. She needed to know what they were.

In a decidedly stupid motion, Rose thrust her virtual 'hand' into the dark gold in Martha's timestream. Pain erupted along every nerve in her body. Instead of images, however, Rose was bombarded with sensation.

Hatred.

She withdrew, snapping her eyes open, breathing in deeply, riding out the waves of pain that wracked her body until they gradually faded. Tears streamed from her eyes and she brushed them impatiently away from her face.

When she could breathe again, Rose peered at the glob in her hand with new eyes. She stretched out every sense she had available to her, heedless of the pain, like rubbing sandpaper on her skin, and found the same immense, drowning feeling of hatred imbued within the tissue of this thing in her hand. She ran a finger along one membrane. She thrust the same finger into the center of the blob's mass and frowned. The three remaining dark gold threads wound themselves around the blob until it glowed faintly, pulsing like a heartbeat.

Hatred. Such..._hatred_.

Rose scowled fiercely, searching for the source of it.

When she finally pinpointed where such a feeling must be coming from, her jaw dropped open in disbelief.

"Martha!" Rose cried. She flew (or something, it was all a blur) backstage, where Tallulah and the chorus girls were in a fuss about something. "Where is she?" Rose asked Tallulah. "Where's Martha?"

"I don't know," said Tallulah, distressed. "She ran off the stage."

A heart-stopping scream froze Rose's blood in her veins. "Martha," she breathed, and ran.

The sewer lid in the prop room was crooked.

"Oh, where are you goin'?" Tallulah asked as Rose bent over the lid to remove it.

"They took her," Rose snarled, unable to explain any more eloquently than that.

"Who's taken her?"

Rose ignored her and dropped down into the sewer.

"What're y'doin'?" Tallulah called as Rose ducked into the tunnels. "I said, wh – ah, hell."

Rose spun around when she heard Tallulah coming down the ladder.

"Go," she ordered the showgirl, voice firm.

"Tell me what's goin' on," Tellulah retorted.

"It doesn't matter, you can't do anything. Get out of here."

"Look," said Tallulah. "Whoever's taken Martha, they could've taken Lazlo, couldn't they?"

Rose stood her ground. "It's not safe for you down here, Tallulah."

"Then that's my problem," she sniffed. "Come on. Which way?" She walked down the tunnel to the left.

Rose hung her head and closed her eyes briefly. Why did this have to happen to _her_?

She looked at her finger and then walked forward. "This way," she mumbled resignedly. Better to keep an eye on the pernicious woman, she thought.

After a while of stalking after Martha's thread in silence, Tallulah couldn't keep quiet anymore.

"When you say, 'They took her', who's 'they' exactly? And who are you anyway? I never asked."

Rose almost wanted to smack her, except that she liked her too much.

"Shut up," she whispered.

"Okay, okay."

"I mean it, shut up!"

Tallulah opened her mouth and Rose put her hand over it. She pulled Tallulah into a dark recess of the tunnel, which was awkward because Tallulah was taller, but she managed.

The creature whose shadow she'd spotted hovered obliviously past them.

Rose released Tallulah and leaned tiredly against the wall. She'd known, but she had hoped, oh, she had _so hoped_ that she was wrong.

"What was that metal thing we were hiding from?" Tallulah asked, volume barely above a whisper.

"Not metal," Rose corrected. "Alive."

"What, that thing? No way!" Tallulah laughed. "You're kidding me."

Rose stared into the distance for a moment before gathering her scattered wits and straightening off the wall. Her frame trembled with rage. When she faced Tallulah, the poor girl shrank back against the wall like Rose was the big, bad wolf. She laughed hysterically in her shaken mind at the errant thought.

"Inside that..._thing_ is a creature that was created to hate all other living beings. Its sole existence is dedicated to destroying everything that isn't a Dalek too. It won't stop until everyone and everything in this universe – and any other, for that matter – is dead."

"But if it's not a human being, that kinda implies it's from outer space." Rose just looked at her. "Yet again, that's a 'no' with the kidding. _Boy_... Well, what's it doin' here, in New York?"

Rose shook her head and pulled Tallulah down the tunnel.

"Listen to me, Tallulah, now that you've seen it, you know. Every second you're here, you're in danger. If you don't go back on your own, I'll take you back myself."

They turned a corner only to encounter a pig man. Tallulah shrieked and the creature attempted to hide. Rose left Tallulah's side to confront the man.

"Where's Martha? What have you done with her?"

"I didn't take her."

Rose paused. It could speak? The others hadn't seemed capable. They were just like that decoy the Slitheen had used to hide on Earth; wild, mindless, no longer human. The Doctor had described it to her. Perhaps the Daleks were doing something different? Or was it just this one? She had asked it a question purely out of reflex; she hadn't expected an answer.

"Can you remember your name?" She finally asked, moving forward slightly.

"Don't look at me," the man pleaded.

"Do you know where she is?" Tallulah demanded, joining Rose.

"Stay back! Don't look at me!"

Ah. Rose glanced her hand and saw her suspicions confirmed. This was Lazlo. The thread flickered; he was dying.

"What happened to you?" Rose asked, voice choked with sympathy. Lazlo turned so she could see that he was, in fact, more man than pig, but still very obviously not human.

"They made me a monster."

Rose knew who 'they' was.

"Who? The Daleks? Why?"

"They needed slaves. They needed slaves to steal more people so they created us. Part animal, part human. I escaped before they got my mind, but it was still too late."

Rose ducked her head. Lazlo was going to die. And Tallulah would break.

But she still had a job to do.

"Do you know what happened to Martha?"

"They took her," he said. "It was my fault. She was following me."

Rose now understood how the Doctor had felt when she would "wander off."

"Were you in the theater?" Tallulah asked.

"Yes."

"Why? Why were you there?"

Rose decided to stay out of it.

"I never wanted you to see me like this," said Lazlo.

Tallulah was confused. "Why me? What do I gotta do with this? Were you following me? Is that why you were there?"

Lazlo turned to face Tallulah completely.

"Yes."

Something in Tallulah's expression broke. She suspected who he was, Rose knew, she just couldn't quite accept it, not yet.

"Who are you?"

"I needed to see you."

"Who are you?"

"I'm sorry." Lazlo turned away, but Tallulah grabbed his arm.

"No, wait. Let me look at you." She moved him until she could see him better. "Lazlo?" He nodded. "My Lazlo?" Her voice broke and trembled. "Oh, what have they done to you?"

Never mind that that question had already been asked and answered, Rose thought to herself.

"I'm sorry," Lazlo repeated. "So sorry."

"Can you show me where they are?" Rose interjected gently.

Lazlo looked at her in horror. "They'll kill you!"

"And if I don't stop them, they'll kill everyone else. Where are they?"

Lazlo swallowed. "Follow me."

Lazlo led them through the sewer tunnels until finally Rose could see and hear Martha – and Frank. She smiled at that. It was good that they were together; they had more of chance of survival if they could work together. Pig men were guarding the prisoners, and one of them started squealing a bit.

"What're they doing?" asked Frank. "What's wrong? What's wrong?"

A Dalek appeared in the tunnel with the prisoners, calling for silence.

"What the hell is that?" Martha wondered out loud.

The Dalek ordered the prisoners into a line and the pig men started pushing everyone around until they obeyed.

Martha helped. "Just do what it says, okay? Just obey. " She said to everyone.

Another Dalek entered and told the first to report.

"These are strong specimens," said the Dalek in its gravelly, emotionless voice. "They will help the Dalek cause."

"Dalek?" Martha mouthed to herself. Rose watched her.

"What is the status of the Final Experiment?"

"The Dalekanium is in place. The energy conductor is now complete."

Rose frowned. What?

"Then I will extract prisoners for selection."

A pig man pushed one of the prisoners, a black man, towards the Dalek. The Dalek raised its plunger-like contraption and shoved it in the man's face.

"Intelligence scan," drolled the Dalek. "Initiate. Reading brain waves. ...Low intelligence."

The man looked understandably offended.

"You calling me stupid?"

The Dalek didn't care whether it had offended him or not.

"This one will become a pig slave," it said.

Two of the pig men pulled the man away.

"No," the man protested instantly, "let go of me! I'm not becoming one of them!"

The Dalek ignored him and moved on.

"Intelligence scan. Initiate."

"They're divided into two groups," Lazlo explained quietly; "low intelligence and high intelligence. The low intelligence are taken to become pig slaves like me."

Tallulah seemed righteously upset about her boyfriend being declared a low intelliegence being.

"Well that's not fair!" She said, a little too loudly. Rose shushed her and turned to Lazlo.

"And the high intelligence ones?"

Because what else could Martha be?

"They're taken to the laboratory."

"What for?" Rose asked.

"I don't know. The masters only call it the Final Experiment."

That was...odd. Daleks, as far as Rose knew, were not prone to experimentation.

Frank was being scanned now.

"Superior intelligence," it announced. It turned to Martha. "Intelligence scan. Initiate. ...Superior intelligence. This one will become part of the Final Experiment."

True to form, Martha argued.

"You can't just experiment on people! It's insane! It's inhuman!"

_Haven't I taught you anything?_ Rose thought with fond exasperation.

"We are not human," said the Dalek. "Prisoners of high intelligence will be taken to the transgenic laboratory."

Transgenic? That meant they were going to...well, they were going to change what it means to be human, Rose supposed, although that brought back memories of a rather unpleasant man who had had nothing to do with the Daleks.

Rose flattened herself against the wall as the prisoners began moving. Lazlo and Tallulah headed down the tunnel away from her.

"Rose. Rose! Quickly!"

"I'm not going," said Rose. Why would she? "I have an idea. You go."

"Lazlo, c'mon," Tallulah pulled at her boyfriend's arm.

"Can you remember the way?" Lazlo asked her.

"Yeah, I think so."

"Then go. Please."

Tallulah looked and sounded like she was about to cry. Rose refrained from sighing.

"But Lazlo, you gotta come with me."

Lazlo had already made his decision. "Where would I go? Tallulah, I'm beggin' you, save yourself. Just run. Just go. Go."

Tallulah finally left and Lazlo joined Rose. After the Daleks passed by Rose fell into line behind Martha and Lazlo fell in with the guards, blending in as a pig man.

"Keep walking."

"I'm so glad to see you," Martha breathed.

They were brought into a large lab and one of the Daleks with the prisoners told one who had remained in the lab to report.

"Dalek Sec is in the final stage of evolution," the third Dalek announced.

"Scan him. Prepare for birth."

"Evolution?" Rose was confused. Daleks couldn't evolve, they were..._Daleks_. Hold on...Dalek Sec? Ooh, she wanted to kill them. _The Cult of Skaro_. Bad Wolf growled eagerly inside her. How dare they survive after what had happened at Canary Wharf?

"What's wrong with old Charlie boy over there?" Martha spoke.

"Why don't you ask them?"

"What, me? Don't be daft."

"I'm trying not to be noticed, in case you haven't noticed."

Martha took a deep breath. "Daleks!" She began. "I demand to be told. What is this Final Experiment?" They stared at her with as much astonishment as tin cans can muster. "Report!"

"You will bear witness."

"To what?"

"This is the dawn of a new age."

"What does that mean?"

"We are the only four Daleks, so the species must evolve outside the shell. The children of Skaro must walk again."

Rose stared with the other prisoners, pig men, and Daleks as the fourth Dalek's shell powered down and the casing began to open. It was Dalek Sec, Rose realized, or it used to be. On a hunch, she looked at her hand and discovered the dark gold threads leading to the Daleks; Diagoras's thread had disappeared into one of them completely. The process she'd seen begun in the threads had finished. And she was right. A new race was born.

A hideous human-Dalek hybrid left Dalek Sec's metal shell wearing the clothing of Mr. Diagoras. It was as tall as an average man, two-legged, with a montrous face. The head was scaly, wrinkly, and pinkish-gray. It was sprouting tentacles on either side and had only one eye, and its mouth was rather small. The brain, though undoubtedly protected, was visible, a large bulbous thing split down the middle.

"What is it?" asked Martha.

It was...an abomination.

"I..." said Dalek Sec, sounding more human than most Daleks. He spoke slowly, as though he was getting used to having an actual mouth. "I am a human Dalek. I am your future."

* * *

**By the way, the poll will remain open until the end of this episode.**


	14. Return of Skaro Part II

**Episode Seven  
****Return of Skaro, Part II**

Dalek Sec turned his beady eye on the prisoners. Rose slipped surreptitiously away from them, unseen. She would intervene, of course, but she thought it would be easier if she wasn't surrounded by pigs and prisoners.

"These humans will become like me," Sec decreed. "Prepare them for hybridization."

The pig men began to move toward the prisoners, making as if to grab them.

"Leave me alone!" shouted Martha. "Don't you dare!"

Time to act.

Rose cleared her throat and stepped out into the open. Everyone turned to stare at her. She smiled. Normally she didn't really like such attention, but this was almost fun.

Almost.

"I would listen to her if I were you. If her mother's any indication, she's got a mean right hook." She waved her hand, wiggling her fingers, at Sec. "Hello."

Sec recoiled in recognition. "Rose Tyler."

"Enemy of the Daleks," said one of the Daleks.

"Conqueror of the Emperor!"

"_Exterminate_!"

"Wait." Dalek Sec stopped them. Martha let out a shaky breath of relief. Rose stuck her hands in her pockets and smiled cheerfully, pretending that her heart wasn't pounding a million beats per minute. She stalked towards Sec.

"Well, then," she said, waggling her eyebrows. "Dalek Sec. This is different, isn't it? Human Dalek. Never seen its kind before, have we? Whole new race. What would Davros think?"

Sec glared at her with his one beady eye. Rose stared defiantly back at him, unafraid. Well, no, she was terrified actually, but she was too pissed off to let fear be the emotion to control her.

"The Cult of Skaro escaped your slaughter."

Yeah, she'd figured that bit out for herself. That sure as hell didn't explain how.

"How did you end up here?"

"Emergency temporal shift."

Rose frowned, wracking her brains, then her eyebrows went up when the term clicked. "Bet that burned you right out, though."

She looked around the lab, amazed at what the Daleks had come to. She remembered fighting a fleet of millions - and winning. Going back further, she remembered fighting one that could have taken over the entire world by itself due to the wonderful power of the Internet. Now they were in a basement of an enormous human construction, experimenting with the sort of thing they used to condemn. Daleks never had unique, innovative ideas - these things had become something else, yet they were still convinced that they were purely Dalek, and progenitors of more of them in the future at that. It was almost...sad, if Rose still had enough compassion for them to say so - and she really didn't. She supposed that made them merely pathetic.

"What the hell have you become, Daleks? I remember a single Dalek that could have conquered the world, an' you're skulking here in the cesspool of Manhattan. What are you, now?"

Sec looked away. "I...feel...humanity."

Rose watched him. She somehow doubted that Diagoras had been an exemplary model of altruism, and Sec's next words confirmed the narrow-mindedness of his new view.

"I feel – everything we wanted from mankind, which is...ambition, hatred, aggression, and - war. Such a genius for war."

Rose shook her head. "No. You're wrong. That's not what it means."

"I think it does. At heart, this species is so very...Dalek."

Rose wished like hell that Bad Wolf wouldn't fry her brains to use the power of a goddess and kill these bastards. Alas, the only power she had her fingertips - literally - was the ability to see _strings_.

"What have you gotten out of this, then?" Rose demanded gesturing around the lab. "What's the point? You're missing out on what it truly means to be human, so why bother with the experiment?"

"What would you know of humanity, Rose Tyler?"

Rose flinched before she could control her reaction and the Daleks capitalized on that one second of weakness. Sec had a disturbing gleam in his eye, and she suspected that he could sense that there was something different about her, something that set her apart from the humans in the room. It wasn't exactly something that was easy to hide from those who could look and see the changes in her. One of the other Daleks glided over and stuck out its plunger close to Rose. She forced herself to stand still, unwilling to show them anymore vulnerability than she already had. It would not do to let them think she could be defeated. She did not have what the Doctor had, immense brilliance and infinite resources, although she had something close to the leverage of fear that he had claimed as the Oncoming Storm. She wondered if the Daleks would start calling her something like that, given what she had done on Satellite Five. She wondered how much they knew about that. It was probably all hearsay, and mostly from Rose herself, so she would have to be careful to make them think that she still had that power over them.

"Rose Tyler's DNA is fluctating," the Dalek in front of her declared. "She is no longer human."

"Nor is the Doctor," said Rose coldly before the Daleks could accuse her of being utterly inhuman. All of the Daleks flinched away from her and she felt mildly triumphant. "He is a Time Lord."

"And what are you?" Sec asked almost magnanimously.

"Bad Wolf."

The Daleks fell silent and completely still. Rose thought she could see fear in Sec's eye. She smirked. She had thought, but hadn't been certain, that those two words still held power. The message was still scattered everywhere, after all. She hadn't paid much mind to it; honestly, it was something that she took for granted, being that the phrase was _everywhere_. Graffiti, advertisements, brand names, city streets, strangers' names. She did rather want to know if Martha had noticed, though. If the young trainee had, she'd never mentioned it.

"Where," Sec asked, his voice trembling, "is the Doctor?"

Rose almost laughed. She could sort of understand his flawed, inhuman logic. He knew that she and the Doctor would keep each other in check. Daleks didn't understand the bond, they didn't understand what it meant, but as long as they had each other, the bad guys might get a second chance at life. His fear was a relief; he didn't know that she couldn't use the entity for her own purposes anymore.

"Gone," she said. "But not for long. He will be back. And when he is, he'll see that I have rid the universe of his greatest enemy once and for all."

She thrust her arm upward and flicked her sonic screwdriver at the lights. A short buzz, and all of them went out except for one. All the power of the others focused in that last one overloaded it, and the sparks that flew out at Dalek Sec and his pets became more than enough distraction for the prisoners to escape.

"Protect the hybrid!" A Dalek shouted.

"Protect! Protect! Protect!"

Martha led the prisoners through the sewers and Rose brought up the end of line, but Martha suddenly stopped, unable to remember the way. Rose ran past her.

"Let's go!" She yelled over her shoulder. "This way!"

They found Tallulah standing bewildered in the middle of one tunnel. Rose didn't have time to wonder why she was still there, she just grabbed her hand and pulled her along.

"What happened to Lazlo?"

Rose felt a twinge of guilt but she ignored the showgirl because pig slaves and Daleks were on their tail and the ladder leading up to the theatre was coming up fast.

"Climb up!" she ordered. "Everyone up, come on!"

**ΘΣ … ΘΣ**

Rose brought them back to Central Park, to the middle of Hooverville. Night had fallen thick and fast and a fire blazed in the center of the homeless camp. They found Solomon and gathered around the fire. Martha found a crate to sit on and rest her tired legs; Tallulah got another one and drew her coat tight around herself. Martha imagined her legs were cold, though. She couldn't think of anything to say to comfort her, so she focused on Rose and whatever she might be planning. Because she had to be planning something, right? Right.

Martha explained to Solomon what they had seen in the sewers while Rose paced in front of the fire. Martha had a feeling that these specific Daleks, the Cult of Skaro, had been central to the Battle of Canary Wharf. She was surprised Rose hadn't found a way to blow them up already. She would have, in her shoes. But that wasn't, Martha reflected, how Rose worked. If she wasn't going to destroy, them, though, how was she going to get rid them?

"These Daleks," remarked Solomon when Martha was finished, "they sound like the stuff of nightmares. And they wanna breed?"

"They're combining with human bodies," said Rose as stepped in and out of the light provided by the fire. The shadows cast on her face made her appear ominously mysterious and even powerful. "Their stock is right here in Hooverville. You've got to get everyone out, Solomon." She stopped right in front of him. "You can't fight these things."

"Hooverville's the lowest place a man can fall. There's nowhere else to go."

Rose shook her head. The fire made her hair look as black as the night. "Then scatter. Railroads. Out of state. Anywhere but New York. I'm sorry, but you've got to get out."

"There's got to be a way to reason with these things."

Martha scoffed. "Not a chance."

"You ain't seen 'em, boss," Frank agreed, his face drawn and pale.

"Daleks are bad," said Rose. "About the baddest thing out there, and right now they'll do anything to survive. We're in more danger than ever before."

They heard a whistle from the edge of camp and a man who had been posted as sentry came running into Hooverville.

"They're coming!" he yelled. "They're coming!"

"A sentry," said Solomon. "Must have seen something."

"They're here! I seen 'em! Monsters! They're monsters!"

"And it begins," said Rose gravely.

"We're under attack!" Solomon bellowed to the people of Hooverville. "Everyone to arms!"

Men distributed weapons to every available body, guns and the like. Frank turned to some frightened villagers.

"All o' you! Find a weapon! Use anything!"

Some of them, however, tried to run away. They were panicked, Martha saw. She didn't blame them. Her own bones were trembling.

"Come back!" Solomon cried to the residents. "We gotta stick together! It's not safe out there! Come back!"

It was too late. The pig slaves flooded Hooverville.

"We need to get out of the park," said Martha.

Rose was looking for an escape route, but there was none. "We're surrounded. We can't go anywhere."

"We're trapped," wailed Tallulah.

"Then we stand together," said Solomon. "Gather 'round! Everyone come to me!" The pig slaves had forced everyone more or less together anyway. "You there! Jethro," Rose and Martha started involuntarily at the familiar name; "Harry, Seamus, stay together."

"They can't take on all of us," claimed Solomon. He fired his rifle. The other men with weapons started firing as well.

"If we can just hold them off till daylight," said Martha with hope.

Rose chuckled wryly. "The pigs aren't anything to be concerned about, Martha." She looked up. "They are."

Everyone followed her gaze.

"Oh my God," Martha breathed. A Dalek was flying towards them.

"What in the world–" Solomon was gaping.

"It's the devil," said the sentry who'd warned them of the pig men; "a devil in the sky. God save us all. It's damnation."

That brought Frank out of his stupor.

"Oh yeah? We'll see about that!" He fired. The bullets did nothing, and Rose pushed the rifle downward.

"Don't bother," she told him, exasperated.

Martha spotted something out of the corner of her eye.

"There's more than one of them," she warned.

The Daleks fired into Hooverville, eliciting panic from the defending residents. Fires erupted among the lean-tos and tents.

"The humans will surrender," a Dalek ordered.

Though Rose had acted relatively calmly before, Martha could see that she had been losing her temper - and now she snapped. Rose pushed her way through the crowd to stand defiantly before the three Daleks, arms splayed as if to shield them all from the damage. Martha rushed to catch up with her and try to keep her from getting killed.

"Stop!" Rose demanded. "Leave them alone! They've done nothing! It's me you want, so kill me!"

"We have located Rose Tyler!" A Dalek stated the obvious. They seemed quite good at that, Martha thought.

Solomon grabbed one of Rose's arms, but she jerked away, and he backed off, no doubt remembering how he got his split lip.

"Stop, Solomon, you have nothing to do with this. This is between me and them. Oh, I've waited a long time to do this."

Martha looked at her and saw a faint golden glow emanating from her hazel eyes, radiating off her skin like she'd become a human glow stick. A sense of de'ja'vu knocked into her gut, reminding her of Bethlam hospital in old-time London. A lance of fear shot its way down Martha's spine. Fear for Rose.

Solomon stared at Rose in awe, but then turned back to the Daleks.

"I'm told I'm addressin' the Daleks!" he said. "Is that right? From what I hear, you're outcasts, too."

Rose was still glowing. Her voice was strangely distorted with an inhuman snarl when she said, "Solomon, don't. I'm warning you..."

"Miss Tyler, this is my township, you will respect my authority. Just let me try."

With a seemingly enormous will of effort, Rose contained herself. The golden light faded away almost completely, only feeble traces left behind in her eyes. The Daleks had turned to her warily and had backed off a distance, no longer attacking. Solomon nudged her aside and he stood before the Daleks, tall and proud. Martha looked at Rose to see her running a shaking hand through her dark hair.

"Rose?" she said quietly. Rose shook her head. Martha put a hand on her shoulder and was gratified to see her smile in thanks.

"Maybe...maybe he'll get through," said Rose quietly with hope. Martha guessed that she was thinking about Sec and how had assimilated with Diagoras - which was nightmarish no matter how Martha tried to make it seem like nothing in her mind. It wasn't totally inconceivable, she supposed, that whatever good may have been lurking in Diagoras could manifest itself in Dalek Sec. Rose would know more about it, she was sure.

Pressed close to Rose, Martha watched Solomon addres the Daleks with admirable poise and passion.

"Daleks…ain't we all the same? Underneath, ain't we all kin?" He set his rifle on the ground. "'Cause, see, I've just discovered this past day God's universe is a thousand times the size I thought it was. And that scares me. Oh, yeah. Terrifies me. Right down to the bone. But it's got to give me hope…hope that maybe together we can make a better tomorrow. So I – I beg you now...if you have any compassion in your hearts, then you'll meet with us and stop this fight. Well…what do you say?"

The Daleks were silent for a moment. Martha clutched Rose's hand in a tight death grip; she hadn't even registered grabbing it.

"Exterminate!" said the foremost Dalek.

Martha heart lurched in her chest. She released Rose's hand, leaped forward and rammed her shoulder into Solomon in one motion. He was larger than her, and stronger, but he put up no resistance and Martha had the strength of desperation on her side. The Dalek fired. Rose was screaming her name, Frank was yelling. Martha forced Solomon away from the blast and felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. Solomon stumbled and fell and she lost her balance for a second, which was just long enough to escape death her own self. She shivered at the feeling of contained energy sizzling along the skin of her back, and the Dalek's shot slammed into the ground at the feet of a man who jumped backwards in fright as a small crater appeared. Hoovervillagers screamed.

Martha found herself shoved backwards and turned to see Rose facing the Daleks. Waves of heat rolled off the woman's frame as she stood between Martha, Solomon, and the Daleks. Martha found herself drowning in an intense feeling of rage and hatred such as she had never felt before. It would have been terrifying if she hadn't known that it was aimed from Rose to the Daleks. Golden heat surrounded Rose and Martha in an aura of righteousness.

"Enough!" Rose bellowed, and her voice was twisted angry growls. Martha had heard her do that only once before. She had been scared half out of her mind then (though she'd been careful not to show it for Rose's sake), but now she was just glad that Rose was on her side. "Kill me, then, you bastards! Let's see what happens! I will take you all with me, you hear me? Kill me and leave these people alone!"

The Dalek was as gleeful as a tin can could be. "I will be the destroyer of one of our greatest enemies!"

"That's right!" encouraged Rose. Her voice was back to normal. "Take me out, so we can all burn in hell!" She held her arms out in invitation. Martha tensed, ready to leap again, no matter the cost.

"Extermin–" the Dalek stopped. The waves of heat surrounding Rose faded a bit as she traded glances with Martha, confused. The Dalek no longer seemed focused on her. Martha thought it seemed like the Dalek was debating with itself about something. Or maybe it was communicating with the other Daleks, or with Sec. "I do not understand," it said slowly. "It is the Destroyer. ...The urge to kill is too strong."

A tense moment of silence filled Central Park. Martha was sure she could have heard a pin drop except for the roaring in her ears. She clutched Rose's arm, unable to help herself, finding comfort in the fading golden aura and furnace-level heat.

"I...obey." The Dalek declared at last.

"What the bloody hell was that?" Rose wondered out loud, breathless. Martha shook her head.

"You will follow," the Dalek ordered Rose.

"No!" Martha cried. "You can't go!"

Rose's eyes were wide and hazel, heat waves quickly cooled to human temperature, as she turned to gaze at Martha. Martha felt her slip something into her hand but didn't dare bring the Daleks' attention to it by looking down.

"I've got to," she said. "They...changed their minds. Do you have any idea how..._weird_ that is?"

Martha shook her head. "But what about _us_?"

Rose looked at the assembled masses of Hooverville and turned back to the Dalek.

"I'll only come with you if you spare their lives! Is that clear?"

After a moment, the Dalek replied, "The humans will be spared. Destroyer, follow."

"I take it I can't come with you?" Martha said before Rose could tell her to stay put.

Rose shook her head. "You're a doctor. That's what these people need right now, you know." There was a double meaning to those words, Martha felt certain. "And I'm sure that with the right tools, you can help me a lot more than you realize."

Martha was gripping the psychic paper and sonic screwdriver behind her back. Rose winked and walked away. Martha let out breath she hadn't realized she was holding when she and the Daleks were out of sight.

She looked at items in her hand and slipped them into her pocket before getting to work.

There were only a few casualties, thank goodness, but many had suffered severe burns and had been cut up and bruised a bit in the pandemonium. Martha had Tallulah boiling water as she cleaned wounds and bandaged men, women, and children, doing what she did best. Solomon was meeting with a group of men cooking up defense and evacuation plans in case there was another attack.

She was bandaging a cut on a man's arm when Tallulah brought her a pot of water.

"Here you go. I got some more on the boil."

"Thanks," said Martha. She finished tying the bandage. "You'll be all right," she told the man. "It's just a cut. Try and keep it clean."

The man thanked her and left. Tallulah leaned against the wall.

"So what about us? What do we do now?"

Martha smiled. She held up the psychic paper.

"We," she said, "are going to the Empire State Building as soon as I'm done here."

Tallulah stared at her like her face had sprouted Sec-like tentacles. Martha grinned.

"This," she waved the psychic paper around, "gets us into places we don't belong. Rose is going to try to reason with Sec, who ordered the Daleks to spare her and the rest of us, and meanwhile she wants to make sure the other Daleks don't ignore Sec and go through with whatever it is they're planning. That's my job."

Tallulah had a dazed look on her face. "And the Empire State Building? Why do we gotta go there?"

"Diagoras was a foreman," said Martha simply. "And according to Frank, he's now manning the city's biggest projects, like the construction of the Empire State Building. The Daleks are just about right where the skyscraper is, only underground, and at the top of the building is a huge energy conductor, which the Daleks mentioned when they were taking me and Frank to the lab."

"What does that all mean? What energy conductor?"

Martha shrugged. "Dunno what they need it for, exactly. But one of the Daleks said that the Dalekanium is 'in place'. My guess is they put something up on the Empire State Building. I've got to go there, find out what it is and how to stop it, and pray the Daleks don't find me before I do."

"Well, what are we waiting for, then?"

"Rose is preoccupying the Daleks," Martha replied patiently. "In a few minutes, she'll be the center of their attention and no one will notice a puny human sneaking into a giant skyscraper."

Tallulah's mouth hung open in awe. "And ya know all this without even talkin' to Rose 'bout it?"

Martha flashed her teeth in the firelight. "We've been working together awhile now. And I'm just brilliant like that."

"I'll say!"

**ΘΣ … ΘΣ**

Rose stormed into the lab (the lights had been repaired in her absence) like she wasn't being escorted by deadly creatures from hell and approached Sec with fury seeping from her pores.

"They were defenseless!" She shouted at Sec. She marched up to him and refrained from prodding him in the chest with a finger. "How dare you? All you wanted was me, you didn't have to go after everyone!"

"The deaths," said Sec, unfazed, "were wrong."

Rose swallowed her next words and stared at him in disbelief. She'd been right - her first impressions were wrong. But how deep did Diagoras's jaded humanity run in Sec's new veins?

"Were they?"

"That man, their leader Solomon, he showed courage."

"He did."

"That's excellent!"

Rose bit her tongue on a scathing remark and said in a strangled voice, "You almost sound human."

"As you are the first of your kind, so am I."

"And what do you need me for? Why didn't you just let the Daleks kill me when they had the chance?"

"We tried everything to survive when we found ourselves stranded in this ignorant age. First we tried growing new Dalek embryos, but their flesh was too weak."

Rose blew out a hiss of angry breath. So that's what that was. "Yeah, I found one of those experiments down in the sewers. Left to die alone in the dark. Congratulations."

"It forced us to conclude what is the greatest resource of this planet – its people."

Sec lifted a huge switch and the ceiling lit up with a blinding light that would have made Rose blink rapidly if she were wholly human. The cold, sterile light revealed hundreds of human bodies lying suspended in the air. Bile crawled its way up Rose's throat. Sec lifted another switch and a shrouded body was lowered.

"We stole them. We stole human beings for our purpose. Look inside."

Rose swallowed her nausea and anger and looked beyond the shroud to see the face of a pale but average man.

"This is the extent of the Final Experiment."

Rose clenched her jaw. She didn't look at Sec when she asked, "Is he dead?"

"Near death," he answered, "with his mind wiped, ready to be filled with new ideas."

"Dalek ideas," Rose spat.

"The Human-Dalek race."

"How. Many." She couldn't add the lilt to make it sound like a question, she was so angry.

"We have caverns beyond this storing more than a thousand."

Rose breathed deep. There was a reason Sec had brought her here, and it wasn't to gloat. He wanted to fix things.

"Can you make them human again?"

"Everything they were has been lost."

Over a thousand people...dead. Their bodies preserved for perversion by a race filled with such hatred they could not condone the existence of beings that were unlike them. A race so hypocritical they were becoming something else and creating abominations in order to achieve their goals of supremacy. It was beyond sick. She felt nauseous.

"Shells," she whispered. "Ready to be...perverted by the collective Dalek mind. Where d'you even get the power to do something like that?"

Sec showed her an animated graphic of the Daleks' conductor plan.

"Yes," said Rose slowly, "we're under the Empire State Building. Makes sense. But how are you using it?"

"We needed an energy conductor."

Rose cocked her head to the side.

"I am the genetic template. My altered DNA was to be administered to each human body. A strong enough blast of gamma radiation can splice the Dalek and human genetic codes and wake each body from its sleep."

"The sun," Rose concluded quickly, her mind spinning. Solar flares gave off gamma radiation; she'd known that even before traveling with the Doctor.

"Soon, the greatest solar flare for a thousand years will hit the Earth. Gamma radiation will be drawn to the energy conductor and when it strikes–"

"Your zombie army takes over the world. So what am I here for?"

"In Utah, you encountered a Dalek, yes?"

Oooh, yes. She remembered. But how the hell would he?

"We thought it was the last of its kind," said Rose, nodding. "How do you know about it? And what does it matter?"

"It is of no importance how I came by this information. You convinced the Dalek that its mission had no purpose, and that the only thing left for it to do was die."

Rose frowned. In an rather roundabout way, Rose supposed that events could be interpreted like that. She'd only ever thought of it as another one of her stupid mistakes as a teenager. A mistake that had killed people.

"Not...exactly," Rose hedged.

Sec waved an uncaring hand.

"But you understand the ideals of humanity that could improve the Dalek race," he said, "and make us better than we are right now." That was usually what 'improve' meant, she thought but didn't say. "You, with your divine powers, you can make us _better_, for you truly understand what that means."

Rose stared at him.

"What, seriously?"

"Consider," proposed Sec, "a pure Dalek: intelligent but emotionless."

"Your kind always believed that sort of thing made you stronger," Rose retorted; "better than everyone else."

"Our creator was wrong."

Rose felt like she'd been spun about and glued to the side of a high-speed bus.

"Say what?"

"It makes us lesser than our enemies. We must return to flesh. And also...the heart."

Well. That was new.

"You wouldn't be supreme beings anymore," Rose warned, wondering how, exactly, Diagoras had managed to change this creature so completely.

"And that is good."

"That is incorrect!" One of the Daleks interjected. Sec and Rose spun around to face it.

"Daleks are supreme!" Added another.

"No," Sec disagreed, "not anymore."

"But that is our purpose!"

"Then our purpose is wrong!" Rose couldn't believe what she was hearing. Oh, she thought, if only the Doctor could see _this_. This was like the ultimate victory over the Daleks, making them feel human. On the other hand, that reminded her a little too much of what had happened in Utah, and how had that ended for the changed Dalek? "Where has our quest for supremacy led us? To this! Hiding in the sewers on a primitive world, just four of us left. If we do not change now, then we deserve extinction."

So. Rose's and Solomon's words had gotten through to him after all. Humanity conquers all. She smiled.

"You want to change everything that makes a Dalek a Dalek," Rose told him, like Sec had not realized where this whole – _weird_ – conversation was going.

"If," he looked pleadingly at Rose, "you can help me."

At least she wouldn't have to waste time trying to reason with him. She hoped that Martha's mission, assuming the other woman had gotten the message Rose was trying to subliminally send, was going just as well.

Now to keep from frying.

**ΘΣ … ΘΣ**

Martha, Tallulah, and Frank stood in a service lift in the Empire State Building.

"I always wanted to go to the Empire State," commented Martha conversationally. The implications of why were completely lost on her current company, of course. "Never imagined it quite like this, though."

"Where are we headed, anyway?" asked Frank.

It did seem to be taking an awful long time to get there.

"To the top, where they're still building."

"How come those guys let us through?" asked Tallulah now. "How's that thing work?"

Was this how Martha was to Rose, always asking unnecessary questions?

"Psychic paper," explicated Martha. "Shows them whatever I want them to think. According to this, we're two engineers and an architect."

Frank took the psychic paper and looked at it in puzzlement. He gave it back when the lift dinged. They entered a huge room that overlooked all of Manhattan. Martha would have enjoyed the view more if she were actually looking at it.

"Look at this place," said Tallulah. She seemed impressed and disgusted at once. "Top of the world."

Martha found the architectural plans – they were right in the open for everybody to see. "Okay," she said, "now this looks good."

Frank joined her and pointed out the date.

"Hey, look at the date," he said. "These designs were issued today. They must've changed something last minute."

"Dalekanium," Martha concurred. She flipped through the pages. "The ones underneath, they're from before. That means that whatever they changed must be on this top sheet, but not this one. We need to check one against the other. Keep a close eye on the top of the building on each sheet."

Tallulah was admiring the view.

"The height of this place! This is amazing!"

Martha looked over at her in concern.

"Careful, we're a hundred floors up. Don't go wandering off." Not that she expected her to or anything. But it was easy to worry when someone's safety was your responsibility.

No wonder Rose was always trying to send her off to safety, Martha thought.

"I just wanna see," Tallulah assured her. She walked into the open area still under construction and looked out over the city. Martha could only imagine what the showgirl might be seeing. Not quite the same thing Martha would see, she was sure. "New York City," sighed Tallulah fondly. "If aliens had to come to Earth, no wonder they came here."

Martha and Frank were spreading the plans on the floor so they could see them more clearly. Martha already suspected that whatever they were looking for would be on the very top, or near it, but she had no idea what to actually look for.

"I'll go and keep an eye out, make sure we're safe up here. Don't want nobody buttin' in."

Frank left the room to keep a lookout. Tallulah didn't know what to look for, either.

"So where did you n' Rose first meet up?"

Martha didn't look up. "It was in a hospital, sort of."

"'Course, you bein' a doctor."

Martha squinted at the Empire State's designs and Tallulah knelt next to her.

"Actually, I'm not really a doctor. I was training to be. Still am, if I go back home."

"And what does she do, then, that Rose? She seems so...different. You know what I mean?"

Martha was startled into a laugh. "Oh, you have no idea how different she really is."

"Tell me."

Martha glanced at Tallulah. She opened her mouth, closed it, and turned back to the sketches, shaking her head. Surely what Tallulah had seen Rose nearly do to the Daleks back i Hooverville was enough of a clue.

"I can't explain, really. It's just...sometimes she's not quite...human."

Tallulah frowned. "Like Lazlo?"

Martha nearly got whiplash, she jerked her head around so quickly.

Before she could say anything, Tallulah huffed, "There's no future for me and him. Those Dalek things took that away. The one good thing I had in my life, and they destroyed it."

Tallulah stood and walked back to the open wall to stare unseeing at the cityscape. Once again, Martha couldn't find the words to comfort her, so she turned back to the drawings after a few moments of silence. Her eyes chanced to land on a rendering of the mast and she paused. Her eyes widened.

"Gotcha!" Martha cried.

**ΘΣ … ΘΣ**

"The new race must be ready by the time the solar flare erupts," Dalek Sec said to Rose.

"You want to make them more human," Rose nodded in understanding. "But what about them?" Rose jerked a thumb at the other Daleks, who were watching the proceedings silently.

"I am their leader."

Rose faced the Daleks. "And that's all right with you lot?"

"Daleks must follow orders," agreed a Dalek.

"Dalek Sec commands, we obey."

"If you don't help me," said Dalek Sec, "nothing will change."

"I can't let you live on Earth."

"You have the Doctor's TARDIS, do you not? Take us across the stars. Find us a new home and allow the new Daleks to start again."

Rose really didn't like this. Well, she liked the _idea _of it - imagine! No more Daleks! But every nerve in her body was screaming out against it. Still, she could find nothing but sincerity in Sec, and what harm could it do? _A lot_, her self-preservation countered. Utilizing Bad Wolf was a dangerous prospect at best. Rose wasn't sure that letting even a little bit of it out wouldn't cause her to spontaneously combust or something. Her growing latent abilities, whatever they were and however they could be defined, were one thing, but Bad Wolf, which was not actually a part of her until she made it so, would, Rose was positive, destroy her.

Besides, the entity wasn't supposed to be some _deus ex machina_ that she could whip out at any moment to save the day. Sure, she had been fully prepared to take out the Daleks earlier, but that was because she'd had no other choice until Sec told them to stand down. There were consequences to manipulating the entity of Bad Wolf that not even she knew. She acknowledged that it was power she shouldn't be allowed to have for numerous reasons, which was why she could _not_ use it without feeling some serious side-effects, but sometimes desperate measures were truly worth taking, in the end.

Was it worth risking her life to keep an evil breed of humans from conquering the world at the Daleks' behest? Was it worth risking her life to pervert what remained of those human bodies...in a good way?

Of course it was.

"When's that solar flare?"

"Eleven minutes."

Rose's eyes widened. That was_ it_?

"Better get to work, then."

Dalek Sec took her through the equipment and rapidly explained what they were used for and how they needed to make them work together.

"Chromosomal grafting?" Rose repeated once, brows furrowed. Her near-photographic memory flipped through pages and pages of textbooks like _The Building Blocks of Identity_ until she was shaking her head. "That wouldn't work. Not sure what the exact reason is, but it wouldn't. You have to split the genome an' plug whatever you need right into it. I can fuse it through the gene feed – I don't know how to do it _properly_, of course, but–"

"We need more chromatin solution," Dalek Sec interjected.

_Some what?_

"The pig slaves have it," announced a Dalek, saving Rose the embarrassment of asking.

A few pig men walked in carrying a large crate, Lazlo among them. Rose pretended not to know him.

"And what happens to them?" Rose asked. She flicked a glance at Lazlo's thread. It flickered dangerously, although Lazlo showed no signs of weakness at this moment. He probably felt it, though.

"Nothing," Sec confirmed her suspicions. "They're just simple beasts. Their lifespan is limited. None survive beyond a few weeks." He spoke to a Dalek: "Power up the engine feeds."

Rose walked over to Lazlo, unable to stay away and perturbed by Sec's dismissive attitude on the matter.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I can't change you back. But they won't do it to anyone else after this, that much I can promise you."

"Do you trust him?"

_No. Absolutely not._

She didn't say that, though. Aware of a Dalek watching her every move, she said, "I know that it only takes a single person to change the fate of the world. Right idea, time, and place is all it takes." She looked away. "I have to believe it can be done."

"The line feeds are ready," declared a Dalek to the room at large.

Rose ran over to the tubes. Sec extracted the stuff inside with a syringe. It wasn't enough to convert the hybrids completely, however. It was only a partial mixture cooked up by Sec based on Rose's crude instructions. She really wished that she had thought to read up _more_ on DNA, but now wasn't the time for wishing. They had to make do with what they had; Bad Wolf would do the rest to make sure it worked. Somehow. She was rather unclear on that part, and planned to just wing it. She was sure that intent and willpower were all that Bad Wolf needed to get done whatever needed doing. She took a deep breath.

"I'm ready," she said. Her hands were trembling. She wished Martha was here.

"The solar flare is imminent," said Sec. "The radiation will reach Earth in a matter of minutes."

That was no different than their situation a few minutes before, thought Rose with amusement. He held out the syringe. Rose's shaking hand began to glow as she focused inward and isolated as small a portion of the tight ball of molten fire in her gut as she could and poured it into that hand. It began to burn ferociously and Rose cried out in pain, unable to keep it locked away. Normally, when Bad Wolf consumed her utterly, she was in so much pain she was incapable of expressing it. Now her hand felt like it was on fire. Her free hand clutched her wrist tightly as she moaned.

Nevertheless, Rose's senses expanded to an overwhelming range. She could _feel_ the chromatic solution mixed up in the syringe. Every atom of metal, plastic, and chromosome melded into her hand. Where air molecules struck it, she could feel each impact with an intensity that threatened her concentration. Sweat poured down her face as she struggled to keep hold of the thoughts that were scurrying away from her mind as if to protect themselves. She closed her eyes and felt herself "dive" into the syringe. With her new senses, she could see missing bits and pieces to the solution. Using her pain as a motivator rather than a deterrence, she was able to patch the pieces together to make them work as a whole. It was like the stuff in the syringe had the potential to be something else and she was fulfilling that potential to change it into what they needed it to be. She opened her eyes to find the liquid in the syringe glowing as well.

With a gasp, Rose released the Wolf. Her knees buckled; Sec reached out to grab her just before she collapsed. Her throat was raw and her voice hoarse when she shoved the syringe into Sec's hand – probably from screaming.

"Do it," she rasped.

Rose found her feet again as Sec made for the main feeding tube. The liquid inside had stopped glowing; she'd felt the excess energy return to her. It was useless, now; it had served its purpose and lay as unnoticeable pollution in her bloodstream.

She cleared her throat and spoke in a mostly normal voice, "That should change the genes or...whatever."

She dragged herself to a wall and leaned heavily against it, trying to make it seem like she was supporting the wall and not the other way around because she didn't think it was a good idea for the Daleks to see how battered her defenses were. However, she could feel herself begin to recover, the risidual ache in her hand fading, the black spots in her vision filling with color again. She didn't think it was a good idea to do anything out of the ordinary - that is, _anything_ to do with the damn Wolf - for several months after this venture, but she was sure that she would survive.

"Power up!" ordered Sec, and a pig slave, not Lazlo, flipped a switch. "Start the line feeds."

A Dalek did something with the machinery and the solution filled the tubes attached to it, moving along them and into the human bodies.

She'd really done it.

"There it goes," she whispered, watching in awe they could see the solution pumping into the lifeless bodies suspended above them.

"The life blood." Sec seemed equally amazed.

Everything was going according to plan.

And then the klaxons belted out a headache-inducing wail, red warning lights and all.

Rose swore, "What the fucking hell is that?"

* * *

**I added Rose's thoughts on the _deus ex machina_ thing because it's true; I'm trying as well as I can to not make the entity a solution for everything, but it's difficult. Rose is no Time Lord, after all.**


	15. Return of Skaro Part III

**Episode Seven**

**Return of Skaro, Part III**

And then the klaxons belted out a headache-inducing wail, red warning lights and all. Rose swore.

"What the hell is that?" She yelled at Sec, pushing herself off the wall. Adrenaline supported her enough to stay on her feet.

But Sec didn't know what was happening, either. "What's happening? Is there a malfunction? Answer me!"

Rose spun to face the Daleks.

"They're overriding the gene feed," she whispered in horror. "No!"

"Impossible." Sec was mystified. "They cannot disobey orders."

Rose took a step forward, and a Dalek rounded on her with its laser shooter.

"Stop! You will not fire!"

The Dalek continued to aim at Rose.

"She is an enemy of the Daleks," said the one who had modified the controls, putting Sec in its sights.

"And so are you," stated the Dalek in front of Rose.

"I am your commander! I am Dalek Sec!"

"You have lost your authority."

"You are no longer a Dalek."

Rose _knew_ those little bastards were trouble the moment she laid eyes on 'em.

"What have you done?" She demanded.

"The new bodies will be one hundred percent Dalek."

"No," protested Sec. "You can't do this!"

"Pig slaves, restrain Dalek Sec and the Destroyer."

Rose felt rough hands grab hold of her arms. Oddly, one of them wasn't very confining. She saw Sec struggle against his own captors and knew without looking that one of the slaves behind her was Lazlo.

Good man, that Lazlo.

"Release me! I created you! I am your master!"

Sec may as well have been beating at a brick wall.

"Solar flare approaching," announced a Dalek.

"Prepare to intercept."

The Daleks turned away from Rose and Sec to operate the controls. Rose heard the lift bell ding behind her; she and Lazlo didn't hesitate. Pushing the other pig slave away, they leapt into the car.

"The Destroyer is escaping! Stop her! Stop her!"

The doors closed on the snouts of the pig slaves sent after them. Lazlo leaned against the side of the lift, panting. Rose had half a mind to join him; there were spots in her vision again.

"You all right?" Rose asked, concerned. She pushed aside her own discomfort and touched his arm.

"Out of breath. It's nothing. We've escaped them, Rose. That's all that matters."

Rose bit her lip but nodded, and slowly her vision returned to normal and she caught her breath.

"Martha'll be at the top. Probably got Tallulah and maybe Frank with her. We'll go see 'em, yeah?"

Lazlo nodded tiredly. Rose slammed her finger on the button for the top floor. Her stomach dropped beneath her feet as they left the Dalek laboratories behind. Lazlo took deep breaths and Rose held hers.

Only a few seconds later, the lift shuddered and began to slow down.

"Oh no," Lazlo muttered.

Rose's eyes darted about the cabin frantically. The only useful thing was the panel of buttons, and slamming on all of them didn't help. The lift came to a jarring halt. The doors didn't open.

Rose growled and dug into her pockets. She rifled through a few things (she really had to clean them out one of these days) and finally pulled out a seven-inch flat steel rod. Lazlo stared at her in bemusement as she stuck the rod into the wall and began to meticulously pry the panel off of it.

"Why are you carrying that thing around?"

Yeah, never mind how it fit in a pocket clearly not deep enough to hold it, right?

Rose talked while she took off the panel. "Kids on Petrilus VII liked to play with these little energy-ball things that could paralyze you for half an hour." The panel fell to the floor with a clank, revealing naked buttons and a mess of wires. The lift began to move downward again. She held up the rod. "These were used to catch them. Never good to go without one."

She stuck her fist in the tangle of wires and yanked them out; sparks flew, and the lift came to a stop once more. The bell dinged and Rose was amused to see that they'd landed on the first floor. She tucked away the rod from Petrilus and gestured.

"After you, good sir."

Lazlo chuckled.

It was only after they had sneaked past the guards that Lazlo thought to ask, "Where are we going? Don't you need to stop the energy conductor?"

"Martha will," said Rose confidently as they strode down the street, hiding her worry. She would much rather be at Martha's side, but since that apparently wasn't option, she'd have to find something else to do. "We're going back to the theatre to summon the Daleks. I'd like to have a word with them."

"Summon...?" He looked at her like she was crazy.

"Yep." Rose nodded. "If Martha doesn't succeed," and she tried not to think of why Martha wouldn't, "they'll have to send their soldiers somewhere. This way, they'll know where to start and we'll be on familiar ground. Better to face off at the theater than underneath the Empire State Building."

What Rose didn't tell him was that she really just wanted to know exactly where all the Daleks and human-Dalek hybrids were before she killed herself using Bad Wolf to destroy them. It wasn't that she had any reason to keep such a thing a secret from Lazlo, she just didn't have the time to explain it. And if Martha managed to stop the gamma radiation from creating the evil hybrid army, it was a moot point anyway.

Rose thought it was good to be prepared, sometimes.

Just not all the time.

"How can you summon those creatures?"

Rose scoffed. "That part's easy. Jus' have to let them know where I am. See, that thing I did down there in the lab took a lot of energy. I needed that energy to get the process started, but when it came to doing something specific, the energy was concentrated. I couldn't use all of it. I've had to store the useless bits in me. Doesn't make a difference to me if it's there or not, in fact I wouldn't even notice it was there if I hadn't seen it, I'll just digest it like it's food. But it can come out as artron radiation. Harmless, but there's nothing like it on the planet. The Daleks will be looking for it, and they won't miss a great big release of it in the middle of the city."

"And they'll find us," finished Lazlo. Rose hummed. They weren't far from the theater now. When it was in sight, Lazlo had another thought. "But how are we going to get in? It's past midnight."

"Feel up to a little breaking and entering?"

**ΘΣ … ΘΣ**

Martha was cold. Freezing, actually. She couldn't feel the sonic screwdriver resting loosely between her numb fingers and she couldn't feel the mast behind the death grip she had on it with her other hand for balance.

She tried _really_ hard not to think about how high up she was.

"Got it!" Frank called as a panel of Dalekanium popped loose under Martha's ministrations. Tallulah took the panel from him and set it down...somewhere. Martha wasn't watching. She was busy working at another one.

The wintry wind was strong; storm clouds had rolled in. Martha had a horrible feeling that she was extremely pressed for time. The wind, slicing through her clothes and skin straight to her bones, threatened to blow her off the top of the Empire State Building. She would have though it was somewhat amusing if her brain hadn't become a popsicle. Frank stood directly beneath her, ready to catch her if she fell and taking Dalekanium from her as they came off. There were four panels, and so far she'd only gotten two to come off.

She had a sinking feeling that she wasn't going to be fast enough.

The yellow buzz of the screwdriver was like a beacon in the frigid night, and kept Martha from thinking too despairingly about their situation. Well, it was more fun to blame her frozen brain on the screwdriver, anyway. Then her body could pretend it was floating and not stiff as a board from the wind and cold.

"_Shit_!" Martha cursed when the screwdriver fumbled through her nerveless fingers halfway through taking off the panel. It landed somewhere below and she was vaguely aware that Tallulah and Frank had immediately set about scrambling to find it.

Martha clung desperately to the mast and kicked at the Dalekanium, swearing profusely at it, trying to get it off through sheer force of will. But she knew it wasn't going to work. Somehow, she knew she was out of time. Every hair on her body seemed to stand up on end, electrified. Her blood sang with burning adrenaline that couldn't quite thaw her limbs of fear.

Martha threw her body at the towering mast and locked her arms around it.

At that moment, a flare of gamma radiation struck down at the Empire State Building.

Martha convulsed and screamed as her world erupted in pain and white-blue light.

Frank barely managed to keep the dying hero from falling off the building when the energy finally released her and she dropped like a stone. He buckled under Martha's sudden weight and laid her down as gently as he could upon the rooftop. Tallulah pressed her heatless fingers to Martha's neck and found a weak, fluttering pulse. Together, they brought her in front of the elevator.

But the elevator wasn't working.

Frank punched the call button angrily but only got sore knuckles for his trouble.

Tallulah found the strange alien device Martha had been using to loosen the Dalekanium and fiddled with it in her shaking hands until she managed to flick the button on it. To their relief, the sound of the elevator rising up to meet them rang harmoniously in their ears.

Tallulah swallowed hard and looked between Martha and Frank, who was pacing as they waited.

"What are we gonna do, Frank? What are we gonna do?"

"I dunno yet," he snapped, and regretted it. Tallulah didn't seem bothered, though.

"She needs a hospital."

"No," he said. "She hasn't got any paperwork or nothin'. An' what are we supposed to say happened?"

"She was electrocuted!"

"Yeah, an' how do we explain her weird clothes? Or where she came from?"

"We can lie!"

Frank shivered. The elevator dinged, and they quickly worked together to get Martha inside it, Frank holding her legs and Tallulah gripping under the woman's arms. They got inside quickly enough, only to find the panel of buttons all torn up. A couple wires were sticking out.

"Um..."

Tallulah bit her lip and gingerly pressed the button for the ground floor. Nothing happened.

"Try that thing again," Frank nodded at the alien device in Tallulah hand.

Tallulah looked like she'd forgotten she still had it. She aimed it at the ground floor button and, presto, the doors closed and the car began to transport them downward. An oppressive weight seemed to drive them through the floor. Tallulah breathed deep and collapsed against a wall.

Frank knelt beside Martha and checked her pulse again. For one panicked instant, he thought it was gone, and then he felt it, like an elusive butterfly. He crouched there with his head in his hands, feeling bone-tired to his very core.

"She's dying, isn't she," said Tallulah.

Frank could only nod.

When the elevator pinged, he carefully lifted Martha onto his shoulder in a fireman's carry, Tallulah helping him so he wouldn't bump her head on any walls or nothing.

"Rose can fix her," said Frank as if he believed this were true, but his voice wavered before he could catch it. Tallulah just nodded. "She has to. She's saved us, this doctor has. I know it."

Tallulah clutched the alien device and said nothing.

"Where would Rose go?" Frank asked her as they left the Empire State Building. The night seemed awfully quiet for such a large city.

Tallulah shrugged. Frank turned slowly to face her, careful not to jostle Martha.

"Tallulah!" He barked, and the showgirl jumped. Her knuckled were white where they held the device. "I need you to focus here, Tallulah," he said more quietly. "We all in this together, you understand?" Tallulah nodded. "All right, now where would Rose go?"

"Um..." Tallulah thought about it. "Well...I would go to the theater. It's safe, but it's close to where those Dalek things are, right? And if she was gonna go somewhere that Martha...that Martha knew to find her..."

Frank thought about it and finally nodded. "She wouldn't go back to Hooverville, that's fer sure. There ain't anything there that can help her fight these things."

So they headed as swiftly as they could for the theater.

When they got there, they were surprised to find that somebody had definitely tried to get in already. By force. Inside, they found out who. Rose stood with her back to them in the center of the theater, Lazlo perching on the back of a seat several aisles behind her. Frank recognized the pitch black hair of the woman who was supposed to get them out of this and silently prayed to whoever would listen that she would. Frank carefully set Martha across a couple seats as Tallulah ran up to her genetically mutated boyfriend and clung tight to him.

They all looked around at Rose as a sudden blast of warm, golden energy filled the vast room. The circular aura radiated around them for only a second before the light faded away like dust blown into sunlight.

Then the Daleks came.

**ΘΣ … ΘΣ**

They burst in through the doors, dozens that Rose could see from where she stood. Human Daleks. They held massive weapons and marched stiffly like soldiers.

On stage, an explosion announced the arrival of the tin-can Daleks. She ducked away from the debris and straightened as soon as the dust was clear. There were two of them, preceded by a chained Sec, who was crawling on all fours to the front of the stage.

"The Destroyer will stand before the Daleks."

Rose took in a breath.

"Don't," warned Lazlo as she tensed to move. Rose glanced quickly at him and did a double take. Tallulah was crouched with him behind the seats, worriedly feeling his forehead. Two aisles behind them, Frank stood protectively over Martha's prone form. Rose's gaze zeroed in on Martha. Her blood ran cold for an instant, then burned hotly. A roaring sound filled her ears, and she saw fire as a golden thing prepared to kill her...and everything else.

The Wolf howled.

She disregarded Lazlo and jumped onto one of the seats so the Daleks could see her more clearly.

When she looked at them, her eyes must have been burning, for the Daleks flinched backward. Sec looked up at her in awe. Rose smiled coldly. She lifted a faintly glowing hand and called to the Wolf within her.

"Stop!" pleaded Dalek Sec, standing. Against her better judgment, Rose paused. The light disappeared as she stared at the hybrid. "Let me speak to them!"

Rose said nothing.

Sec turned to the Daleks, pulling at his restraints. "My Daleks…just understand this. If you choose death and destruction, then death and destruction will choose you."

"Incorrect. We will always survive."

"Now we will kill our greatest enemy, the Destroyer."

Rose balked at that. '_Greatest_ enemy'? What about the Doctor, then?

Sec yanked his chains, causing them to rattle loudly.

"But she can help you!"

"The Destroyer must die."

"No, please, you can't! You don't understand what we've become! What we are is not right! We cannot destroy all who are different from us. Our existence will hold no meaning. Our lives will be pointless. Why should we chain ourselves to a certain death at the hands of the Destroyer when she will show us mercy if we surrender?"

The Daleks turned to face him.

"You would have us change," said one.

"When the alternative is to survive," continued the other.

"We are chained to survival. That is our identity."

Sec shook his head, tentacles flapping. "There is more to the universe than that!"

"Only that which we must destroy."

"Change would destroy the Dalek race. You are not a Dalek."

Sec appeared utterly helpless. "Why won't you understand?"

"The Destroyer has poisoned you."

"She must die."

The Daleks turned to face Rose. Rose did not move. She was tired.

As one, they shouted, "EXTERMINATE!"

Sec leapt as far forward as his chains would take him. It was just far enough to intercept the energy bolts before they came anywhere near Rose. Sec was dead in the blink of an eye. Not that Rose had blinked.

She clenched her fists and her jaw, her whole body rigid, like she'd been drowned and left in the cold to freeze. Slowly, she turned to look at the human Daleks lined up in a squad to her right.

"Is that what you want to become?" she asked quietly. "Is that the sort of future you see for yourselves? Murdering your own leader because he dared to dream differently. Are you," she turned, balancing carefully, to face the other human Daleks as well, "are any of you truly a Dalek?"

"Dalek humans, take aim."

The soldiers cocked their weapons and pointed them at Rose. Tallulah let out a barely audible whimper. Rose lifted her chin slightly. She made eye contact with one of the soldiers. She saw _life_ there. Martha's life. In that moment, Rose should have felt relieved that Martha had succeeded, but she could feel nothing.

"Exterminate!"

The Dalek that gave the order was promptly blown to smithereens.

"We are not Daleks," said the man Rose had made eye contact with; the same man she had seen when Sec had first shown her the would-be Dalek creations. "You are not our masters."

"If you will not obey, then you must die," said the remaining Dalek on the stage. It began to fire.

The soldiers fired back; Rose stood unmoving in one place, trusting the soldiers' aim not to hit her as long as she wasn't in the way. Before long, there was only one Dalek left, and it wasn't in the room. Rose jumped from her seat and walked over to the man who had spoken.

"You did it," said Rose quietly, though she was unable to muster a smile. "You've won. You're free."

No sooner had the words left her mouth than the hybrids were their heads and screaming. The life she's seen in the man's eyes - Martha's life - seemed to contract, convulse, and begin to wither, as if locked in the throes of death.

"No," whispered Rose, eyes wide with horror and realization. "You can't. You _can't_!"

The would-be human Daleks collapsed to the ground, twitching and moaning in pain. At once, they fell silent. Frank ran over to the one closest to him.

"Killed 'em," he said, horrified, after finding no pulse. Rose was staring at the dead man directly in front of her.

"Only two of the Daleks have been destroyed," said Lazlo, his voice only a little weak. "One of the Dalek masters must still be alive."

Rose bowed her head. "Always," she murmured. "Just the one." _While we always lose_, she added silently.

She stalked away, heading for the Dalek laboratories.

The last Dalek was connected to the machinery that had manipulated the hybrids. When Rose entered the lab, it spun around to face her.

They stood like that for a time, evaluating.

And then Rose laughed.

The Dalek seemed bewildered at this. "What are you doing? Stop this! Report!"

Rose clutched her stomach, doubling over with laughter.

"YOU WILL CEASE!"

Finally, Rose regained her composure. She wiped a few tears leaking from her eyes and a snort escaped before she could hold it back.

"You..." she started, and took a deep breath to fight further hysterics. "You're the last of your kind!" she finally burst out. "You've killed them all!"

The Dalek's weapon limb twitched and its eyestalk focused and refocused. Rose imagined that this meant it was confused and itching to kill her. And it was undoubtedly terrified of her, too. She guiltily enjoyed the heady feeling of power its fear gave her.

"If you had just let things be, if you had listened to your leader, everything would be all right. But no, you just had to go and _fuck_ things up."

Rose lunged forward so quickly that the Dalek didn't have time to move back. She stopped barely an inch away from its eyestalk and peered into the cold blue light.

"And now you're the only one left."

The Dalek said nothing.

"What's your name? Daleks of the Cult of Skaro all had names, right? What's yours?"

After a moment it answered, "I am Dalek Caan."

Rose smiled a mirthless smile. "Right. Dalek Caan. Listen to me. It's not too late, you know. I can still help you, if you let me. I can still spare your life."

The Dalek seemed to gaze into her soul and shrink at the sight of it. For a few seconds, it said nothing. Then it glided back from her a foot or so, putting a bit of distance between them.

"Emergency temporal shift."

"NO!" Rose screamed as Dalek Caan disappeared in a flash of light.

"Rose!"

Rose turned around as Tallulah, supporting Lazlo, entered the lab, followed by Frank, who was carefully holding Martha's limp body to his chest. Lazlo looked feverish, Martha was unmoving.

"He's sick!" Tallulah stumbled under Lazlo's weight. She managed to catch him and set him down gently as he collapsed.

Rose looked at Frank. "She hasn't moved since that lightning struck the mast on the Empire State Building," said Frank. "Her pulse is really weak. I didn't know what to do, so we brought her here, to you."

_We always lose._

"Please, can you help him?" Tallulah was in tears, clutching Lazlo's hand. "What is it, Rose? What's the matter with him? He says he can't breathe. What is it?"

Lazlo touched her cheek with his other hand.

"It's time, sweetheart."

"What do you mean 'time'? What are you talking about?"

Rose walked towards them slowly. Frank laid Martha down on the floor, supporting her head. Rose looked down at her hand. The dark gold threads were gone. Sec's unique thread was gone. Frank's and Tallulah's were still vibrantly strong, and Solomon's led out the door, presumably towards Hooverville. Two threads were rapidly fading from existence. She looked away.

"None of the slaves…survive for long. Most of them only live a few weeks. I was lucky. I held on 'cause I had you. But now…I'm dyin', Tallulah."

"No you're not. Not now, after all this. Rose, can't you do somethin'?"

"What about Martha?" Frank added. His eyes were suspiciously wet and glimmering. "She was tryin' to get the Dalekanium, but I guess she ran out of time, 'cause there was this lightnin', and she was holdin' onto the mast and screamin' and–" his voice choked off with a small, sad sob.

Rose stood there with tears rolling down her cheeks.

_We always lose._

"Listen to me," she said in a calm voice that belied the rage and terror she'd corraled into one corner of her mind. "Frank. Lazlo. Tallulah, with three Ls and an H. I need you to do something for me."

Frank and Tallulah looked at her expectantly. They expected a miracle.

"When Martha wakes up, tell her to go to the TARDIS. There's a disc under the jumpseat. It'll take her home. Can you tell her that?"

They shot her their best puzzled expressions.

"Well, sure," said Tallulah. "But what are ya gonna do?"

Rose smiled.

"I'm gonna die." They blanched. "There's no way around it. Jus' tell Martha...thank her...for giving me something I'd lost."

She sniffed and turned her gaze to Lazlo. "Live your life, Lazlo. Don't waste what I'm giving you. Have you got that?"

Lazlo nodded weakly, unable to voice whatever he was really thinking.

Martha and Lazlo were lying close enough to each other that Rose could kneel between them and touch Lazlo's left shoulder and Martha's right without stretching. Tallulah crouched on the other side of Lazlo; Frank stood close to Martha.

Rose clutched Lazlo's and Martha's shoulders tightly and bowed her head, dark hair falling in a curtain around her pale face. She whispered, "_I'm sorry, Doctor_," and threw her head back in agony as fire ripped through her soul.

**ΘΣ … ΘΣ**

Martha was floating. She was lying on a great big golden cloud and it was wrapped around her like the most comfortable blanket in the world. She snuggled into the cloud, smiling, and felt the warmth caress her in response. She was surrounded by peace and happiness.

A niggling thought in the back of her mind disturbed her newfound serenity, and she frowned, trying to push it back, but the thought was persistent and would not be ignored. It jumped up and down in her mind, trying to get her attention. She hid away from it, sure she would not like whatever it had to say.

Martha succeeded in ignoring it, but her peace had been permanently disrupted. She could not help but wonder what thought had plagued her so. She had to wonder if it was important. _What could be more important than this?_ Martha mentally scoffed, burrowing into the softness of the golden light around her.

Eventually her curiosity got the better of her. She could not rest until she knew what was disturbing her. Martha thus hunted for the thought that had vied for her attention, and found it standing erect waiting for her to come and find it.

_Where's Rose?_

Martha frowned. Rose? Who was Rose?

_What happened to the Daleks?_

What the hell were Daleks?

_Is Earth safe?_

Earth...why wouldn't Earth be safe? Earth was home. Earth was -

_Am I dead?_

Death? What was death? What was life? There was only this...gold...stuff...

A flash of burning hazel eyes seared through her mind, and she jerked in surprise. She knew those eyes. They belonged to...Rose? Yes, Rose.

Dark hair, beautiful smile.

Metal creatures of destruction. Pig men.

A blue police box.

Martha gasped and opened her eyes.

She knew where she was. The happy golden euphoria of healing had left, and all she saw now was a stark cold laboratory created by enemy hands to aid in the destruction of the human race.

Martha looked to her right and her breath caught in her throat. She forced her stiff, screaming, tired muscles into a sitting position and immediately leaned over Rose Tyler, pushing the other woman's crumpled form off her knees to her back while simultaneously feeling for a pulse. Rose's skin was startlingly hot under her fingers, her heartbeat pulsing madly through her veins as if in a rush to reach the end of the line. Martha checked her breathing. Rose's breaths came in short, shallow, silent gasps, as if she couldn't get enough air, although when Martha studied her mouth she could see nothing obstructing her airway.

A groan snapped her attention from Rose to a man dressed in a blue uniform, sporting a disfigured face and a snout. Lazlo. He moaned one more time and rose into a sitting position, helped up by Tallulah, who was fretting over him worriedly.

"Are you two all right?" asked Frank from behind Martha. Martha jumped. Lazlo looked up and met Martha's eyes. She knew by looking at him that he had experienced the same strange golden euphoria that she had.

The last thing she remembered was getting electrocuted, so she supposed that that meant Rose must have healed the both of them. ...Somehow. She wasn't quite clear on what had been wrong with Lazlo to warrant healing, though.

Nor why Rose was currently lying boneslessly on the ground between them in a bad state.

"I'm okay," said Martha quietly, and her voice sounded normal to her ears, which was odd. She would have thought it would be all crackly and hoarse for some reason, but she felt fine. Great, even, as energy began to seep back into her exhausted body like it was being refueled. Her stiff muscles seemed to melt.

"Same here," said Lazlo, just as quiet. There was a feel of reverence to the room now, as though any loud noise would disrespect Rose. Tallulah hugged Lazlo.

"What's wrong with her?" Frank asked Martha, kneeling beside her to touch Rose's arm and jerking his hand back with a low hiss. "She's _burning_."

Martha shook her head helplessly.

"Did she tell you anything?"

Frank, Lazlo, and Tallulah exchanged glances but didn't say anything, and Martha grew irate.

"Well? What did she say?"

"Martha," said Tallulah gently, as though she was afraid of breaking her. "Martha...she told us she was gonna hafta die to save you."

It took a second for that to sink in.

"She said somethin' 'bout there being a disc under the seat in the TARDIS that can take you home," said Frank.

Martha stared at Rose.

"No," she said.

The other three looked at each other again.

"No," Martha repeated, glaring at them for their passive helplessness and resignation. How could they give up on Rose? "Not on my watch, she doesn't. Lazlo, Frank, grab her."

They all stood, Frank and Lazlo supporting a comatose Rose between them. Tallulah bit her lip and looked to Martha for instruction.

"I'm taking her back to the TARDIS. It's by the Statue of Liberty, come on."

**ΘΣ … ΘΣ**

Frank went back to Hooverville to report to Solomon about what had happened. There were going to be celebrations aplenty in the poverty-stricken neighborhood. Frank told Tallulah and Lazlo that he'd speak to Solomon about giving Lazlo a home, seeing as he was still all pig-faced and such.

Martha wasn't thinking about any of that. After Frank took his leave, she and Lazlo carried Rose the rest of the way to the TARDIS, Tallulah following. Tallulah and Lazlo kept up a steady conversation, but Martha wasn't listening to their words, though she was grateful for something to fill the silence. She was thinking about what she would do when she got to the TARDIS. She was wondering what was wrong with Rose. She was thinking about which black hole to kick Rose into when she got better.

Lazlo and Tallulah, of course, were amazed at what such a deceptively tiny box could contain. Martha ignored their astonishment and led Lazlo to the TARDIS's med lab – which the TARDIS moved to the door leading from the console room, so that wasn't hard. They laid Rose down on a bed and said their goodbyes over her body.

Tallulah gave her the sonic screwdriver. "Came in real handy gettin' you back to Rose," she said with a sad smile. Martha's returning smile was too stiff to count as a real one.

"She saved my life," Lazlo said, and hugged her.

"She told us to thank you for her," said Tallulah when Lazlo returned to her side. Martha looked back and forth between them. "Said somethin' 'bout you givin' her something she'd lost."

Martha swallowed a hard lump in her throat. "She said that?" Her voice was strangled.

Lazlo and Tallulah nodded.

"You ask me, I think she thinks the world of ya." Tallulah smiled kindly at her.

"Thank you," Martha told both of them, trying hard to ignore the sting in her eyes and the heart-shaped thing lodged in her throat. "Really, for everything. We couldn't have saved the world without you. So...thanks."

They were astonished that Martha should be grateful to them, after all she did for them. Martha just hugged them both, wished Lazlo good luck, and told them to take care. After one last sad look at Rose, they left.

Martha did not go after that disc or whatever they had said Rose had told them about. It didn't matter. Rose was still alive. Martha would sooner die before that changed.

Eight hours later, Martha was utterly exhausted, terrified out of her mind, and desperate for a solution she did not yet have.

Rose's fever had escalated to frightening levels, so frightening it was a miracle to Martha that Rose hadn't yet melted into the bedspread. Any attempt to keep her hydrated failed – Martha couldn't get Rose to swallow anything and she was jerking around too much for intravenous application. When Martha tried to put restraints on Rose, Rose became so involuntarily violent that Martha had had no choice but to vacate the vicinity until Rose had calmed down.

The brunette's heartbeat was erratic and slamming against her ribcage five times faster than it should have been. When Martha listened to it with a stethoscope, the music that always accompanied the sound of Rose's heartbeat had risen to a deafening cacophany of noise.

Martha did not dare leave Rose's side for more than a couple minutes. Five times Rose's heart had stopped completely, and as Martha had no time to experiment with the TARDIS's medical technology, her repeated cardiopulminary resuscitations were hell on Rose's chest. Rose now had three broken ribs which Martha had had to wrap using some kind of stretchy length of bandage found in a drawer of the med lab.

Although Rose had yet to regain consciousness, she muttered things in a language Martha did not understand. As Rose lay there twitching in fever, she would murmur, "_Lupus Nocens...Blaidd Drwg...Akuro...Mal Loup...Schlecter Wolf...Darlig Ulv..._"

Without time to look it up on her phone, Martha had long since given up trying to understand it.

And she couldn't keep this up for much longer. Each time Rose died, it was harder to revive her. Martha was certain that if Rose's heart stopped again, she'd make one of her broken ribs puncture a lung, and Martha had no idea how she was supposed to be able to fix that on her own. It was only a matter of time before she either couldn't keep Rose alive any longer or Martha herself succumbed to unconsciousness out of sheer fatigue.

During a lull in Rose's mutterings and spasmodic seizures, Martha dragged herself away from the very comfortable plastic chair at Rose's bedside. She wandered the large infirmary, staring despondently at foreign equipment and machines. Many of them had large labels she could actually read, but some of the machines' purposes were so useless Martha had half a mind to destroy them. One really weird-looking thing was designed to determine the age of a living organism, and what good was that to anyone?

Finally, she found something. Martha was pretty sure it was a stasis pod of some kind. Or something. She actually wasn't positive how it worked. But there was a large book on a small table standing beside it, and Martha quickly memorized the instructions for the very simple operation of opening the pod, dragging Rose into it (she was heavier than she looked, Martha thought tiredly), and fiddling with the options until Rose's condition was sealed in ice.

It didn't solve the problem. At all. But at least now Martha had a chance to breathe.

Martha decided to take that breath with the Statue of Liberty. Taped to the outside of the TARDIS was a note from Frank informing Martha that Lazlo had been accepted by Hooverville and Solomon wanted to extend his own thanks for saving the world. Frank offered to help Martha with anything should she need it. Martha sighed, crumpled the paper into a wad, and threw the ball into the Atlantic. She sat there for a while until the sun disappeared behind Manhattan's skyline, repeatedly reading the inscription on the statue without comprehending it, then she returned to the TARDIS to eat.

She didn't have an appetite, but her stomach growled at her in protest when she thought of simply collapsing to the floor in sleep. So she trudged into the kitchen, scrounged up some toast, and nibbled on that until she couldn't keep her eyes open anymore. She fell asleep there at the table and woke hours later with a deep-seated sense of unease.

Martha ran to the med lab to check on Rose, but the stasis machine was still functioning and Rose stood motionless inside it, leaning against the wall, barely clinging to her last dregs of life. Martha slumped against the wall beside it with her head in her hands for an undetermined length of time.

"You are not leaving me," Martha whispered, but the statement lacked the vehemence it had had the first time she'd said it. She leaned her head against the wall behind her for a moment and sighed. Then she forced her stiff, tired muscles to get off the floor and make a big pot of coffee. She needed caffiene.

After a modest breakfast, Martha made her way into the control room, which seemed much darker than usual, with a steaming mug cradled in both hands. She sat in the beige captain's chair until the mug was empty. When it was, she set it aside and slipped her fingers under the cushion. After some tentative probing, the tips of her fingers found a jewel CD case. Martha slipped it out and stared at the disc contained therein.

She stood, opened the case, and walked around the console for a full minute before finding a place to put the thing. A light flickered weakly from the central column before spitting out a life-size image of Rose. The features were blurry and indistinct, but Martha felt confident she would recognize that smile anywhere. The figure faced Martha and spoke, but the words were gibberish and faded in and out periodically as though there was a bad connection.

Martha had a bad feeling that something was wrong with TARDIS.

The message appeared to end, the hologram blinking out into nothing. The time rotor in the middle slowly moved, but it seemed to Martha that it as running like a rusted machine. There was a loud screeching sound which sounded nothing like the time machine's usual wheeze, and sparks began to fly from the console.

Martha's eyes widened in panic. The green light filtering from the console flashed a bright, forboding red that bathed the room in a horrible light that reminded Martha of a bad horror film. The TARDIS screeched unhappily.

Martha flew around the console, flipping every switch and hitting every button she could find in an effort to get the TARDIS to stop...whatever it was doing. Her heart pounded fiercely; she couldn't even see straight. Or maybe that was because the floor was bucking madly beneath her feet. She clung to the console and beat furiously at a control whose function was quite beyond her, yelling at it to stop.

The TARDIS's wild movements threw Martha away from the console to send her reeling at a coral column. She slammed into it back-first and didn't have time to catch her breath or grumble about her sore back before the TARDIS bucked again and she thrust her arms out to absorb an impact with the floor that would have otherwise smashed her face. Hot liquid trickled slowly down her neck and Martha realized, as she was tossed on top of the console, that she had hit her head against the column.

At last, the TARDIS landed with a bone-jarring crash that knocked Martha from her precarious perch on top of the console. She laid face down on the grating for several moments and tried to quell a violent urge to vomit. She groaned.

It was her throbbing head that finally got Martha to rise cautiously to her knees. She touched the wounded area with one hand and winced when she felt the gushing goose egg that was back there. She wiped the blood on her jeans and forced herself to stand. Then she grabbed the console in a white-knuckled grip as the world spun dangerously about her – figuratively, this time – and vertigo threatened to spew her guts everywhere.

When Martha was confident that the doors would stay in front of her and not go lurching off to the other side of the room, she stumbled towards them. Although Martha wanted nothing more than to pass out and let her brain hemorrhage in blissful sleep, she had to see where the TARDIS had taken her.

She threw open the doors and stepped outside.

Well, she tried to, anyway. And found gravity reversing itself so quickly she was sent sprawling back inside on the TARDIS floor, cursing. Her brain struggled to escape her skull and, thankfully, failed.

When Martha dared to move again, she did so slowly. She crawled forward on her hands and knees and gripped the edge of the TARDIS floor with one hand. Carefully, mindful of gravity's sadistic laws, Martha tossed one leg outside the TARDIS and hooked it over the edge. It was a struggle in confusion and contradicting laws, but finally she pulled herself upright to sit on the edge of the TARDIS's doorway. The blue box had landed with its doors facing the sky, and Martha could not remember a time when gravity had been so confusing. One leg in the TARDIS, pushed by its gravity against the floor, and one leg out, dangling over the side toward the ground, Martha giggled feebly.

She looked down into the TARDIS, which was lit by a scary red light, and then away again quickly. She jumped off the edge of the TARDIS she was straddling and was at first too grateful to be upright on solid land again to realize where she was standing.

Martha cried out and scrambled away from the cliff's edge, which her toes had rested only inches from before she'd looked down at them. She almost fell into the TARDIS in her haste, but managed to recover her balance and put some distance between both the TARDIS and the edge of the very high, sheer cliff. Dizzy, nerves frazzled, Martha tripped over a rock – a pebble, really – and when she tried to catch herself ended up breathless and on her back, staring up at the spinning sun. The soil under her back was cool and tall, looming trees cast their long shadows over her body.

She breathed hard, unwilling to move. As the sky was beginning to hold still and her lungs inflated properly on her command once more, another shadow fell over her face.

"Need some help?" A pale hand stuck itself into Martha vision.

Martha jumped, almost running her eye into the hand's thumb, and cried out for the umpteenth time in fright. She got to her feet and then clutched someone's shoulder tightly at the world spun around again. She squeezed her eyes shut, waiting for the vertigo to pass, and then jumped away from the person she was leaning against as though she had been scalded.

Rose Tyler's dark hair flitted about in the cool breeze as she stood there smiling at Martha. Martha gaped at her.

"What...? What the...? How are...?" Martha spluttered helplessly, gesticulating between Rose and the TARDIS sprawled on its side by the cliff's edge. "Why the _freak_...oh, never mind, I give up."

Martha glared at Rose, who was trying to stifle a laugh with her hand.

"Are you all right?" asked someone else. Martha jerked her head to the right to see a scrawny man with flyaway brown hair sticking up in all directions. He had warm, dark eyes and a kind smile and wore a brown pinstriped suit with a pair of Converse.

Martha narrowed her eyes at him. "And who are you?" She asked while crossing her arms.

"I'm the Doctor."

Martha's jaw dropped. Rose sighed.

"Doctor, this is Martha Jones. Martha, this is the Doctor."

"Hello!" The Doctor wiggled his fingers in a wave. Martha was speechless. The Doctor frowned. "I think she hit her head," he said to Rose.

Rose touched Martha's left arm with one hand as her other threaded through Martha's hair to find the source of the problem. Martha would have flinched, but Rose's touch was incredibly soothing. After a moment, Rose hummed affirmatively at the blood and the goose egg.

"Want me to fix that?" she asked. Martha turned her head to look at her and Rose took the opportunity to scan her eyes for signs of a concussion. Martha batted her hands away, annoyed. Rose chuckled. She fixed her palm flat on Martha's injury and pressed against it firmly, sending a lance of pain through Martha's skull. A pleasant heat transferred from Rose's hand to Martha's head, filling her with a brief sense of golden euphoria, and the pain was suddenly gone. Just like that.

Rose smiled indulgently at Martha's astonished stare and pulled her hand away. "Head wounds have gotten pretty easy," she admitted ruefully, rolling her eyes at the Doctor. "Doesn't even take anything out of me anymore."

Martha opened her mouth to say something, but...there were simply no words.

"Sure you did that right?" said the Doctor. Rose smacked his arm.

"'Course I did. Now stop it, she's just confused and doesn't know what's goin' on."

Then Martha cleared her throat.

"But I _am_ still here," she said. The Doctor and Rose smiled at her, having clearly been peripherally aware of her the whole time. Martha took a moment to scrutinize the Doctor, comparing him with the image she'd had in her head of a regal sort of warrior-prince. Martha took a deep breath. "Can you...can you help me?"

The Doctor started. "Oh, yes," he said, "I almost forgot." He marched off toward the TARDIS without another word.

"Is he always like that?" Martha asked Rose. Rose nodded.

"Yep."

"Oh." She paused, and gave Rose a sidelong look. "That's where you got it from."

"Oi!"

Martha shook her head and followed the Doctor, who jumped down into the TARDIS like he did it everyday. Martha stopped at the threshold and hesitated. Rose had trailed behind Martha and stood beside her now.

"I can't go in," said Rose when Martha looked at her inquisitively. "Universes would collapse, timelines would scatter everywhere, things like that."

"You mean you can't go and see yourself."

Rose smiled.

"Right. Did that once. Almost destroyed the world."

Martha still hesitated.

"Go on," said Rose. "Someone has to take care of me."

Martha took a breath and leaped into the TARDIS. She didn't manage to land as gracefully as the Doctor had, however, and ended up flat on her back glaring up at Rose, who peered in the doorway and laughed. Grumbling, Martha got to her feet and headed for the med lab.

It was farther away now than it had been when she had led Lazlo through the TARDIS, due largely to the fact that something was wrong with the TARDIS, Martha was sure. When she arrived, the Doctor was squinting at the stasis chamber, reading Rose's vitals. He turned when Martha entered.

"Oh, good," he said. "Help me get her on the bed."

"Um," Martha breathed, "she's, er, not exactly..."

"Healthy," said the Doctor. "Dying, I should think, if I've got my timelines straight."

He didn't seem too concerned about that and for some reason it was almost as easy to trust him as it was to trust Rose. The Doctor stood ready and Martha reluctantly deactivated the chamber. Rose slumped forward and the Doctor caught her. With Martha's help, she was replaced upon her bed and Martha milled about, unsure what to do, as the Doctor examined her.

He sure had a gob, Martha soon realized.

"Luckily, I know exactly what's wrong with her," he was saying as he pulled a long, spindly instrument from his suit pocket – Martha watched in awe as the thing was extracted from a container that couldn't possibly be able to hold it. "And I can't fix her up completely, that'll be up to you, I just don't have the time, and this will take quite a bit of time to recover from, I'm afraid. No matter what she says, or what that looked like to you out there, just now, when she healed your head, but healing – among other things – takes a _lot_ out of our Rose, especially when she's not used to it. Has she died from this yet?"

Martha found herself pinned by his gaze and swallowed convulsively. "Er, yeah, she did, I suppose, but I, er–"

"How many times?"

"Five."

The Doctor's eyes widened. "That's a lot."

"Yeah."

The Doctor straightened and gripped the device he was holding with both hands. He held it poised directly over Rose's heart and tensed his arms. Martha realized what he was going to do a second too late; the Doctor thrust the instrument straight into Rose's chest and through her heart. Rose's back arched and low, keening whine escaped her comatose lips. Martha put a hand over her own mouth and cried out in wordless horror.

The Doctor ignored Rose's pain and twisted several dials on the long rod, then adjusted its postion with a yank, causing Rose to positively wail. The device lit up with bright purple and green lights dancing along its length. Rose's body slowly fell back onto the bed, slumping lifelessly. Martha ran forward, but the Doctor stuck out an arm to hold her back.

"Don't," he warned. "I'm adjusting the equilibrium of the chromosomal graft I just put in her heart to regulate the transfusion of temporal energy into her cells." Martha stared at him blankly. "It's like a tumor," he balled a fist to demonstrate, "that _needs_ to spread throughout her body," he opened the hand and waved it around, "but it's doing it too slowly. This will speed it up. Too much, actually, but I can't do anything about that. You'll just have to keep a close eye on her. Good news is, her ribs will heal in a matter of minutes."

Martha found her voice. "You just stabbed her in the heart!"

The Doctor rolled his eyes. "With a chromosomal grafting device," he agreed.

"What the hell is a chromosomal grafting device? I've never heard of it."

"And there's a lot you've heard of, is there?" Martha's mouth snapped shut. The Doctor jabbed a finger at her. "That's right. And keep it like that. The device is making sure the flux in Rose's DNA stabilizes before it sends her body into a complete meltdown, which about...ooh, a million times as bad as what you've already seen. Could destroy a fair bit of this galaxy, I'd wager."

"What do you mean? Destroy the galaxy? Her DNA is in 'flux'? She's changing?"

The Doctor peered at her. "She hasn't told you?"

Martha scowled. "Told me what?"

The Doctor clamped his mouth shut.

"Told me what, _Doctor_?"

"Nothing."

"Tell me!"

The Doctor sighed. He adjusted a dial on the grafting device – Rose twitched and Martha flinched on her behalf – and then turned to face Martha.

"Yes, Rose is changing. I can't tell you why or what she's changing into. You'll learn that from...er, someone else. Later. For you. Anyway, the point is, as she changes, she's going to be a shedding a lot of...energy, you could say. Temporal energy from the time vortex, to be specific. She absorbed the whole thing before, and then I took it out, but it left traces behind that built up into a..." he floundered for a word; "a, a _tumor_ that started spreading really _really_ really _really_ slowly throughout her body. Because it's going so slowly, Rose hasn't changed completely yet, and that's left the molecular structure of her cells unstable. The longer she stays in that in-between stage, the worse it gets. By healing you and...Lazlo, wasn't it? she exacerbated the problem, probably should have died instantly - and _now_ her cells are so unstable they're trying to self-destruct. The grafting device is making the tumor spread quickly so her DNA will balance out the way it should be."

Martha blinked. She no longer had any reason whatsoever to complain about Rose's weirdness.

"I can't put it any simpler," the Doctor complained.

"No, I," Martha hesitated, "I _think_ I get it. Sort of. Ish. Even though you still haven't explained _why_ this tumor thing is even there. Or what she did to heal me and Lazlo, or why it made her like this. So...what's going to happen when you take that out?" She nodded at the device sticking straight up out of Rose's chest.

"You'll have to take care of her," said the Doctor seriously.

When the Doctor left, taking the grafting device with him, he gave Martha a long spiel of instructions, only some of which she was sure were even necessary to remember. He warned her that although the "tumor" had now spread everywhere it was supposed to, it would take a few days for Rose's fluctuating DNA to behave, and a bit longer than that for her cells to completely stabilize. Because of that, she could be prone to "exploding" at inopportune moments – namely, when Martha was in the room. Martha wasn't sure she wanted to know what that meant, only that she should run away if Rose's constant fever spiked sharply without warning.

In addition, Rose would be spitting out golden fluid, sometimes mist, at random intervals and Martha had to make sure she didn't choke on the stuff – whatever it was. Rose would probably have a couple more heart attacks, and her heart rate would remain high until she was done healing. She might also stop breathing for several minutes at a time; Martha was required to wait at least twenty minutes before attempting to restore breathing or Rose would immediately begin having a seizure, which would cause all sorts of problems with her other injuries.

Also, Martha couldn't plug Rose into any machine, nor set up an I.V. She couldn't attempt to give her food or drink, but there should always be a fresh cup of tea nearby. The lights had to be dimmed, but not turned off, and it was advisable to keep the room as quiet as possible.

The Doctor told her that it would be several days before Rose regained consciousness, and even then it might only be for a few delirious moments. The TARDIS, he said, would be absolutely useless in her absence (as Martha believed had already been amply demonstrated), so Martha was going to be stranded on this planet, Kallisto, for about two whole weeks. Luckily, there was a small town nearby, so when Martha ran out of food in the TARDIS, she had somewhere to go – he even gave her some of the local currency so she wouldn't have to resort to stealing or other unsavory means of survival.

Although utterly nonplussed by most of his instructions, Martha was grateful for the Doctor's help. She didn't imagine that Rose would have survived for much longer under her care alone. It was because of this that she found herself climbing out of the TARDIS and following the Doctor into the forest. They walked for a little ways until they came to another TARDIS, which looked identical to the one she'd just left behind at the cliff except that this one was standing upright. The Doctor let her inside without any qualms, and Martha found herself staring at the familiar control room as though she had never been in it before.

"Thank you," she said to the Doctor. "I don't know what I would have done without your help."

"Neither do I." He replied with a small quirk of his lips.

A moment of understanding passed between them, as crystal clear as the sun shining through a piece of glass, and Martha found herself returning his smile.

"I'm sure you'll be fine," said Rose with wink.

Martha laughed, feeling as if a million pounds had been lifted from her shoulders.

"Now I get to pester you about all those things you haven't told me," said Martha mock-cheerfully with a wicked glint in her eye. Rose gulped. The Doctor clapped a hand on the brunette's shoulder.

"I didn't tell her anything she didn't need to know to take care of you," he assured Rose with a wry grin. Martha snorted.

"Yeah, about that..." She looked down and bit her lip. "I'm sorry, Martha, in advance. In advance for you, I mean, not for me; for me it already happened. I'm sorry for the things I'm about to do to you."

Martha's brows furrowed. "What could you do to me?"

Rose laughed mirthlessly. "Nothing I haven't already done or tried to do, I'm sure. But just...when you get to Colorado...remember that, no matter what happens, after it looks like everything is over, and then it isn't...I am sorry."

Colorado? In the States? Why would they go there? Martha wisely decided not to ask, although the Doctor was gazing at Rose speculatively.

"How can you be sure she hasn't been there already?" Rose rolled her eyes and just looked at him until he smacked his forehead. "Oh! Sorry. 'Course she hasn't. Obvious from the start. My mistake."

Martha was absolutely sure that she was missing the point of this conversation. But that was all right. Some things, she admitted mentally, she just wasn't ready to know.

"I'm sure I won't care," Martha told Rose truthfully.

Rose shook her head but said, "I'm in good hands, at least."

Martha ducked her head bashfully.

She looked up when she heard a shout from somewhere else in the TARDIS.

"Am I gone yet?"

Martha's eyes widened. That had been _her_ voice. The Doctor groaned and rubbed a hand through his hair, embarrassed. Rose put a hand over her face, muttering something under her breath.

"No, you're not!" The Doctor yelled.

There was a pause. Then Future-Martha responded sheepishly, "Oh. Oops. I'll just shut up now."

They shared a round of chuckles.

"Say, Martha," said Rose. "When you get back – home, I mean, to your family and such – just...keep an ear out, all right?"

Martha frowned, puzzled. The Doctor cleared his throat. Rose raised a hand towards him and narrowed her eyes at it, then flicked a finger towards him as if shooing a fly. The Doctor's eyes glazed over for a moment. He sighed, and gestured for her to keep going.

"You're gonna spend a long year traveling the world. Speak well of me."

Martha was perplexed. Traveling? She was already doing that, wasn't she? Was any of that actually supposed to mean something?

Before she could ask, her future self's voice rang out again. "Don't forget to warn her!"

Hadn't she just been warned? Of...something?

"Oh, right!" the Doctor exclaimed. "Erm, Martha?"

"Yes?"

"Do not, under any circumstances, tell Rose what happened here."

"What?" Once again, Martha was dumbfounded.

She looked at Rose, who shrugged.

"What happens on Kallisto, stays on Kallisto," she said.

"But why?"

"Tell Rose it was a struggle," said the Doctor, "but you managed to keep her alive on your own."

"It's important that I don't know, Martha. Believe me, I'll forgive you for lying about it."

Martha shook her head slowly. "But...I can't," she protested. "I can't lie to you! And why should I?" She looked at the Doctor. "You're..." she pointed at Rose; "I mean, she's..."

She huffed in frustration at her inarticulate stammering. There was no real way to describe how badly she wanted to tell _her_ Rose about the Doctor. They had to know already, anyway. Why couldn't she say anything?

"The future is never set in stone," said Rose gravely. "What happened today can easily be rewritten with just a few words."

"If Rose doesn't know, she can't make choices based on knowledge that doesn't exist, reducing the chances of creating a paradox." The Doctor's gaze was fervent and earnest as it met Martha's.

"But I don't know if I even _can_ lie to Rose!"

Rose touched her hand. "You can when my life is on the line."

Martha was trying to find clever words to argue with when her future self shouted, "Just live with it and leave already, will ya? We've got things to do!"

Rose and the Doctor smiled at Martha apologetically.

Martha finally hung her head, thanked them again, and said goodbye. She watched the future TARDIS leave and wished she could tell Rose for certain that she _would_ be reunited with the Doctor.


	16. Burn With Me, Part I

**If anyone has ideas for the whole 'last of the Time Lords' arc, don't be shy!**

**Also, I took some liberty with Rose's knowledge and where she got it from because let's face it, she is not the Doctor and she never will be.**

* * *

**Episode Eight  
Burn With Me, Part I**

Rose was grinning as she held the glowing yellow end of her sonic screwdriver at Martha's cell phone.

"Took me a while, but the Doctor did this for me, and I thought that after nursing me back to health you deserved it too, so I looked for the program and – bingo!" She flicked off the screwdriver and waved the phone at Martha before throwing it to her. Martha caught it with one hand and couldn't help smiling – Rose's grin was positively contagious. "Universal roaming."

The screen on the console of the TARDIS flashed the words in tandem with Rose's voice.

"No way!" said Martha, unable to help herself. "But it's too mad! You're telling me I can call anyone, anywhere in space and time on my mobile?"

"If you've got the number, sure." Martha couldn't keep her astonishment from her face. "Try it, let's see if I got it right. Go on!"

Martha's fingers were shaking slightly as they flitted carefully over her phone, selecting her mother's number on her contact list before she could think about her reasons for doing so.

Just then, the TARDIS gave a horrendous lurch, launching both Rose and Martha into the console and each other. Martha was painfully reminded of the last time the TARDIS had done that and was at least grateful that it wasn't nearly as bad now as it had been when Rose was comatose. Not to mention Rose was cushioning Martha against the console – uncomfortable for Rose, most certainly, but Martha wasn't complaining.

The monitor, which had previously read 'Universal Roaming Activated', was now flashing a sort of lavender-lilac color – mauve, she thought it was called. Rose looked at the screen and her eyes widened. Martha groaned as she stepped away from the other woman. Couldn't they _ever_ have a peaceful day?

"It's a distress signal," explained Rose calmly. She stretched across the console and activated something. "And we're locking on to it. Hold on tight Martha, this could get a bit..." the TARDIS jarred violently, sending them reeling to the floor. "...bumpy."

Martha grumbled something about not knowing how to fly properly but was the first on her feet. She pulled up Rose, who was giggling, by grabbing her hands and jerking, then she headed for the doors.

"So are we checking it out or what?" Martha demanded when Rose hesitated. Rose rolled her hazel eyes and shoved Martha out the door in front of her.

They both exclaimed in surprise when a wave of heat slammed into them as soon as they stepped into what looked like some sort of mechanical engine room, sans engine. Maybe they were underground, close to the planet's core.

"It's like a sauna in here!"

Martha was wearing a loose black sweater, but now she ripped it off in a hurry and tied the sleeves around her waist, leaving her arms bare in the black tank she wore underneath. Rose's face was scrunched with distaste but, oddly, she did not seem inclined to remove her leather jacket, although Martha thought she was wearing a white muscle shirt underneath it. Maybe the jacket had an internal cooling system or something. Martha felt untenably irritated at the jacket.

"Where are we?" Martha asked curtly.

Rose shrugged, which Martha hardly found comforting, although she shouldn't have been surprised. Rose seemed to live life by the seat of her pants, which Martha, for the most part, admired. Rose walked over to the only door in the room, which looked like a heavy-duty thing more appropriate for a vault, and opened it. Martha followed her through, looking up at the sign above the door as they passed through; it read, "Area 30."

Two men and a woman came running down the corridor toward them and Martha eyed the three newcomers with caution. They were covered in sweat and grime and appeared to have been here long enough that complaining about the heat had lost its meaning.

"Oi! You two!" called a ruggedly attractive man with dark hair.

"Get of here!" The woman ordered. Martha's instincts had her guessing that she was the one in charge.

The man who had spoken pointed at the door through which Rose and Martha had just exited. "Seal that door! Now!"

The two men sealed the door shut and Martha quickly moved out of their way. Rose's eyebrows were furrowed. She made no effort to move, so the men had to work around her.

"What's going on?" Rose asked before anyone else could say anything.

"I'll ask the questions," snapped the woman. She had stringy dark blonde hair that clung to her face. "Who are you? What are you doing on my ship?"

Martha pegged her as the control freak of the crew.

"Are you the police?"

"Police?" Martha scoffed. "That's a new one."

"Then who are you?"

"We got your distress signal," said Martha simply.

"Why can't we hear any engines?" Rose asked. They all looked at her. Rose shrugged. "What? We're on a ship, aren't we?" Martha smiled.

The woman in charge answered the first question, "It went dead four minutes ago."

Rose's eyebrows went up. She and Martha exchanged a meaningful look.

"So maybe we should stop chatting and get to engineering. Captain." The man with brown hair and blue eyes who'd been silent all this time added that last as if it didn't quite matter.

A computer's voice interrupted, "Secure closure active."

Huh?

There was a loud clang from behind the captain and she spun around in surprise. "What?" she echoed Martha's thought.

"The ship's gone mad," said the blue-eyed man.

They watched another woman run toward them, doors slamming shut behind her as she raced to beat the series of metal contraptions and get to relative safety. It would have been funny if only Martha had any idea what was happening.

"Erina?"

"Who activated secure closure?" demanded the woman, Erina, as she joined them. "I nearly got locked into Area 27!" The last door shut behind her, enclosing them in Area 29.

Something caught Martha's eye and she blinked, sure she must be seeing things. But she wasn't. The porthole showed a clear view of everyone's imminent deaths

Meanwhile, the new arrival stared at Martha and Rose like they were bugs on the bottom of her shoes that had had the gall to survive a stomping. "Who are you?"

"She's Rose and I'm Martha. Hello." Martha said absently; she rubbed her eyes, and when the image didn't change, she moved to get a better view through the small window in the wall.

"_Impact projection: forty-two minutes_," announced the computer.

"We'll get out of this," said the captain, her eyes wild and frightened. "I promise."

"Rose," said Martha unsteadily, pressing her face against the window.

Rose glanced her way, but then looked at the captain. "Forty-two minutes until what?"

"Rose!" Martha yelled, her voice embarrassingly coming out at a higher pitch than she had meant for it. "Look!"

Rose joined her at the window and they watched the sun approach them at an alarming speed. The ship was headed straight for it.

"Forty-two minutes until we crash into the sun," the captain confirmed.

**ΘΣ … ΘΣ … ΘΣ**

Rose spun around to face the captain and Martha turned with her.

"How many crew members have you got?" Rose demanded.

Stunned enough by her forwardness not to question a question, the captain replied promptly, "Seven, including us."

"We transport cargo across the galaxy. Everything's automated. We just keep the ship–"

Rose didn't much care about any of that.

"Get everyone here now," she said, "I'll get you out!"

She went to the door she and Martha had come through, the one leading to Area 30 and the TARDIS. The crew, however, rushed to stop her.

"What's she doing?"

"No! Don't!"

But Rose had already opened it. The force of the heat wave that blasted out of Area 30 was so immense it threw Rose off her feet and away from the door. One of the crew members, who was wearing some sort of breathing apparatus, took the opportunity to seal the door shut again as Martha ran to Rose's side. Rose was fine, brushing Martha off of her and gaping incredulously at the door to Area 30.

"My ship's in there!" She protested as the door was sealed.

"In the vent chamber?"

The woman who'd nearly been locked into Area 27 took off her gear and took at look at the gauges next to the door.

"We could have escaped in it!"

"It's lava," one of the men argued.

"The temperature's going mad in there!" said Erina, reasing the gauges in disbelief. "Up three thousand degrees in ten seconds, and still rising."

"Channeling the air. The closer we get to the sun, the hotter that room's gonna get."

Rose huffed. "Then we fix the engines, steer the ship away from the sun. How hard can it be?"

The captain shook her head, bemused, but said, "Engineering's this way," and headed off down the open corridor. "I'm McDonnell, by the way. Captain."

Rose hurried to follow her and the rest of the crew trailed after them. Martha stuck to the back to observe what was happening in case Rose needed to know something she otherwise missed while playing hero.

"_Impact in forty, twenty-six_."

They were running down a flight of stairs when suddenly the captain and Rose stopped.

Rose whistled. "Worse than Mickey's room. And that's saying something."

Martha craned her neck to see past everyone and realized that "Mickey's room" must have been a bit of mess. The crew tromped disbelieving into the engine room and stared at the wreck that remained of their totaled engine. Wires and springs were sticking out every which way, and bits and pieces were steaming here and there. It was hard to tell if the mess had once been an engine or a junkyard.

Martha suspected sabotage, and said so.

The crew looked understandably uncomfortable with the idea, but didn't have anything to say against it. Captain McDonnell sauntered to the intercom on the wall.

"Korwin? Ashton? Where are you?" There was no response. Martha's skin tingled with anticipation. She shared a look with Rose, who was surveying the crap littering the floor around the engine with a peculiar expression on her face. "Korwin, can you answer?" When there was still no reply, McDonnell huffed and left the intercom. "Where the hell is he? He should be up here!"

Martha guessed that Korwin was supposed to be their engineer. Or, if not their chief engineer, then the person who'd been responsible for engineering at the time things started going...wonky. He was definitely the most likely suspect for sabotaging, then. Question was, why would he do that?

Rose, like Martha, was frowning, but for a different reason.

"This looks like an engine I saw on a Starsky 500, but this kind didn't last very long, no more than a few months from what I can remember, and lately I remember a lot. Fusion scoops are too dangerous, not to mention it messes with a system's ecology. Too many scoops in a short time decimated a large number of systems within weeks. That was in...4278, I believe, when my friend and I made sure it was outlawed. When we landed, my ship said it's 4280." Rose leveled her gaze at McDonnell. "So using energy scoops is illegal now, isn't it?"

Martha gave her a curious look as the crew shifted about guiltily. Outlawed? McDonnell had said that they transported cargo, but if they were using illegal means to power their ship, did that mean their cargo was illegal, too? Were they smugglers? Pirates? And if they were messing up the ecology of solar systems – were they murderers, as well?

McDonnell stared at Rose for a moment-Martha could have sworn she looked a bit cowed-then sniffed dismissively. "I don't if you're telling the truth about getting that law passed, but this is an old ship. We're due to upgrade next docking." She turned her back on her and walked away. "Scannell, engine report."

Scannell, the brown-haired, blue-eyed guy, walked over to a computer terminal and ran a scan while everyone else watched. The computer beeped a few times Scannell shook his head. "No response."

He hurried over to what was left of the engine.

"What?" The captain was incredulous.

He studied bits of wire sticking out of the engine. "They're burnt out. The controls are wrecked. I can't get them back online."

"Don't you have back-ups?" asked Martha.

"We don't have access to them from here," said McDonnell. "The auxiliary controls are at the front of the ship."

"Yeah," said Scannell glumly, "with twenty-nine password-sealed doors between us and them. We'll never get there in time."

Martha frowned, thinking of the sonic screwdriver. "If they're password-sealed, can't you just override them?"

"No," said Scannell. "Sealed closure means what it says. They're all dead-lock sealed."

Rose, having been thinking along the same lines as Martha, was disappointed. "So a sonic screwdriver's no good..."

"Nothing's any good," snapped Scannell hopelessly. Martha was starting to dislike him. "We've got no engines, no time, no chance."

Martha looked around and the expressions she saw were all the same. The handsome, dark-haired man, the captain, and Erina were all forlorn and resigned to their fates. It was as if they had half-expected something like this to happen, and now that it had, they weren't even going to fight it. Given what Martha had gone through lately, she felt like personally throwing each of them into the damn sun herself. She had not been put through hell and more only to die now. She had not slaved to bring Rose back to health only for _her_ to die now. At least, not without a long, hard struggle first.

"What, so you're just giving up?" said Rose in disbelief, giving voice to Martha's thoughts. "What kind of space pirates are you, anyway?" Martha was startled into a laugh. Rose looked at the captain. "Who has the passwords for the doors?"

"They're randomly generated. Reckon I know most of 'em." The other man, who looked younger and cuter than Scannell, had been silent up to now. Then, seeing the looks Martha and Rose gave him, he hastily added, "Sorry. Riley Vashtee."

"Then what are you waiting for Riley Vashtee?" said Rose. "Get to it!"

"Well," Riley hesitated, "it's a two-person job." He turned away and fetched a large metal yellow...thing. A magnetic clamp of some sort, Martha thought. Rose eyed it with a bit of inexplicable distaste. Riley also grabbed a big backpack. "One needs to answer the questions, and one needs to carry this," he slung the backpack over his shoulder. "The oldest and cheapest security system around, eh Captain?"

There was a playful glint in McDonnell's eyes. "Reliable and simple, just like you, eh Riley?"

Riley huffed, pouting. "Try and be helpful, get abuse. Nice!"

Martha wasn't sure what other options they had, but it was Rose's job to figure that out, not hers. And she would need the help of the other crew members, which left Martha to help Riley. Not that Martha was complaining. Never let it be said that Riley wasn't a looker, she thought with a mental smirk and a brief scan of Riley's lean frame.

Martha took the equipment from Riley and wasn't surprised at the weight. He looked surprised, but impressed that she was strong enough to hold the equipment unaided.

"I'll help you," she said, adjusting the items in her arms to relieve the strain of carrying them. She smiled charmingly. "Make myself useful."

Riley grinned at her, baring painfully pearly white teeth.

"It's remotely controlled by computer panel. That's why it needs two."

Riley turned and headed away from the main group and Martha made to follow him, but Rose stopped her.

"Oi," said Rose quietly, touching her arm. Martha looked down at her thin, pale hand, than slowly met her eyes. They stood looking at each other for a moment as though they were capable of communicating without words but were choosing not to communicate much of anything. Rose's eyes were dark and worried, however, and that was plenty communication for Martha. "Be careful. I wasn't really joking when I called them pirates. They might not be that, but they could be dangerous. Whatever you do, don't trust them."

Martha felt warm at the other woman's concern, but a bit irritated that Rose didn't think Martha was capable of figuring that out for herself. She pushed her irritation aside. That wasn't the point; Rose just wanted to look after her. So Martha gave her a small smile and a short nod.

"I figured that. You be careful, too." Then she turned and walked in the direction Riley had left them, taking the chance to admire his admittedly delightful rear end as she caught up to him.

**ΘΣ … ΘΣ … ΘΣ**

Rose watched Martha leave, masking her worry from the others. She knew Martha could take care of herself, so she wasn't really worried about leaving her alone with a strange man. Well, she was, but for another reason entirely. She could already see Martha's attraction to Riley and was worried that she'd get too attached to him. Riley didn't seem as cocky or cowardly as Adam had been, but the parallels were too strikingly similar not to cause Rose some concern. One thing was for certain: if they all got out of this alive, she was _not_ permitting Martha to bring home the stray.

Her thoughts were abruptly cut off by a man's voice emitting from the intercom.

"McDonnell? It's Ashton."

The captain ran over to the panel. "Where are you?" she demanded. "Is Korwin with you?"

"Get up to the med center _now_!" was Ashton's reply.

McDonnell didn't bother to reply; she ran. Rose sighed and followed at a swift jog, leaving Scannell and Erina behind.

They went straight past Riley and Martha and kept going until they reached a room with what Rose could vaguely identify as medical equipment.

"_Impact in thirty-four, thirty-one_."

Rose grimaced.

Ahead of them in the med center, a man was lying on a gurney and screaming his fool head off as though he were being burned alive. It was Korwin, Rose guessed. He was convulsing spasmodically and begging something to 'stop it' with such fear that Rose felt an icy chill in her spine.

A man – Ashton, most likely – and a woman were trying to restrain Korwin and failing miserably.

"Korwin!" yelled the woman. "It's Abi! Open your eyes, I need to take a look at you!"

Abi was their medical expert, Rose concluded. Something had happened to Korwin while he was lurking about in the engine room that made him go nuts and rip apart the engine. Question was, what sort of thing could do that to a man?

"Korwin!" McDonnell exclaimed as they burst into the room. "What happened? Is he okay?"

Rose rushed to help restrain the man but flinched and stumbled backwards in shock when she felt his temperature through his jumpsuit. Korwin's skin was scorching. Something deep inside of Rose abruptly began to tremble in utter terror, and she froze on the spot, her instincts and improvising skills failing her for the first time in her life. She couldn't do anything but stand there, paralyzed by irrational fear.

Martha had rushed in after Rose, temporarily abandoning Riley when she realized that there was a medical emergency. Rose started almost violently when Martha came up beside her and gave her an expectant look. Oh, right. She was supposed to be able to save the day.

Rose swallowed, unable to fully bite back the fear welling up in the pit of her stomach. She shoved a shaking hand into her jacket and pulled out her sonic screwdriver, fumbled clumsily with the settings, and thrust it at Martha. Rose didn't trust her tongue to explain without tripping over gibberish words, so she just jerked her head at Korwin – who was screaming, "Oh God, help me! It's burning me!" – and took a generous step back.

"How long's he been like this?" asked Rose, tearing her gaze away from Korwin and forcing her voice to remain steady. She wasn't entirely successful, but thankfully everyone else was preoccupied.

"Ashton just brought him in," said Abi.

Martha dutifully stepped up to Korwin and buzzed the screwdriver over his body. Her dark brows furrowed in confusion and concentration as she mentally received the readings via sonic waves.

"What are you doing?" McDonnell demanded, panicking.

"Bossy much?" Martha muttered, still concentrating. Korwin cried out in pain once more.

"Don't be so stupid," said McDonnell, shoving past Ashton. "He's my husband."

Martha pulled away, eyebrows raised, then went back to scanning.

Rose was too busy controlling her inexplicable case of the shivers to care about personal relationships. What the fuck was wrong with her? The little voice in the back of her head was becoming outraged at Rose's inaction, but the larger part of her was still utterly petrified. But _why_? As scared as she was, she was frustrated, too. What was so terrifying about Korwin that all she wanted to do right now was find a small, dark closet and hide there until this was all over?

"He's just sabotaged our ship!" Ashton exclaimed. Rose perked up, her mind leaping on the distraction like freakin' life raft.

McDonnell faced him. "What?"

"He went mad. He set the ship to secure closure, then he set the heat pulse to melt the controls."

"No way! He wouldn't do that!"

"I saw it happen, Captain."

Martha finished scanning and shook her head as if to recover from the new experience. Rose would have warned her about what it felt like if she hadn't been robbed of speech by fear. Martha leaned over Korwin and tried to get him to open his eyes, but he refused.

"I can't!" he insisted through the pain. "Don't make me look at you, please!"

Rose flinched at the sound of his voice.

"All right, relax," Martha shushed him softly. She picked up a needle gun off the cart beside the gurney. "Sedative?"

"Yes," Abi confirmed.

Martha pressed the gun against Korwin's neck and triggered the sedative before Korwin could put up a fight. Korwin gave one last almighty bellow of pain before collapsing. Rose's fear ebbed away with Korwin's consciousness and she breathed an inaudible sigh of relief, although her hands still shook slightly. She shoved them into her pockets.

Martha replaced the needle gun on the cart and faced the room a little nervously. She was the center of attention and everyone was expecting something she wasn't sure she could deliver.

"His body temperature's rising, like he's reacting to the sun. There's weird energy readings, too; I don't know what to make of them." Martha paused, then nodded at the large MRI-like device behind her. "Stasis chamber, yeah?" Rose frowned; how could she possibly know that? Twenty-first century earth certainly didn't have any stasis chambers that Rose knew about. "Put him in there, and keep him sedated. Regulate his body temperature if you can." Abi narrowed her eyes for a second before hurrying to do as Martha had said. "And to put a pin on those energy readings, do a bio-scan and tissue profile on a metabolic detail."

Rose blinked. Oh, she was so glad she'd brought along an actual doctor. Her heart rate eased back to normal.

Abi looked over her shoulder and nodded. "Just doing them now."

Martha blinked. "Er...good job?"

Now fully recovered from...whatever it was Korwin had done to her, Rose cleared her throat.

"Has anyone else been showing these same symptoms?"

"Not so far," said Abi.

"So far," Rose echoed.

"Will someone tell me what is the matter with him?" said McDonnell, who was standing stock still at Korwin's side and looking down at him. The pain in her eyes was nearly unbearable to witness.

"Infection," answered Martha promptly, but her eyes revealed her uncertainty, "Of some sort. We'll know more after the test results come in."

Rose stared at her. Infection? Her stomach clenched uncomfortably. The feeling she'd got when she touched Korwin...

"You best go catch up with Riley," she said uncomfortably. "I'll see what we can do in case Plan A fails." Martha nodded and made to leave. At the door, Rose stopped her and leaned in close so the others couldn't hear; she wasn't sure how they'd react. "And Martha? What you said, about an infection... I think there's something else on board this ship."

Martha raised an eyebrow. "Anytime you wanna unnerve me, feel free."

Rose quirked a smile despite the uneasy feeling still settling in her gut. "Will do. Now get out of here." She lightly pushed Martha into the hallway and then turned to face the others, who were preoccupied with watching Korwin and studying his vitals.

"Ashton, Captain McDonnell," she said to get their attention. "We need to head back down to the engine room, see what we can find, if anything, to buy us some more time."

Ashton obligingly walked past Rose, but McDonnell remained where she was, clutching Korwin's hand. Rose suspected there was no danger in that contact, not anymore. Whatever had "infected" Korwin had probably moved on to livelier prey. Until she knew more, it was best not to make the crew panic with that tidbit of information. It was possible the thing was still inside Korwin, anyway, and therefore currently incapable of causing harm.

"Oi!" Rose snapped impatiently. "Let's _go_."

Reluctantly, McDonnell left Korwin and followed Ashton.

"Call us if there's any news," said Rose to Abi. "Any questions?"

"Yeah," Abi huffed. "Who are you, and who was that woman that was with you?"

"I'm Rose, and that was Doctor Martha Jones," said Rose. Then she turned on her heel and caught up Ashton and McDonnell.

**ΘΣ … ΘΣ … ΘΣ**

"_Heat shields failing; at twenty-five percent. Impact in thirty-two, fifty._"

"Hurry up, will you?" said Riley, not unkindly, as he typed something at the computer console. Martha looked on, bemused. "What was that all about, anyway?"

"Erm," Martha hesitated. "Ashton found Korwin. He's sick, Abi's looking after him. The others are trying to find a way to make the engines work again or something."

"Korwin's sick? That's odd. How bad is it?"

"Not sure yet," Martha lied, not wanting to distract him from the task at hand. "What do you need me to do?"

Riley nodded his head at the magnetic clamp at his feet. "Fix the clamp on."

"On it!"

Martha grabbed the clamp and fixed it firmly against the door they were trying to open.

"What are you typing?"

"Each door's trip code is the answer to a random question set by the crew. Nine tours back, we got drunk, thought 'em up. Reckoning was if we're hijacked, we're the only ones who know all the answers."

"So you type in the right answer..."

Riley tapped his backpack. "This sends an unlock pulse to the clamp. But we only get one chance per door. Get it wrong, the whole system freezes."

Well, then.

"Better not get it wrong then," said Martha, worried.

"Okay," said Riley excitedly. A readout screen showed him the first question and he lid over ot read it out loud. "Date of the SS Pentallian's first flight? That's all right!" He typed in the answer and yelled to Martha, "Go!"

Martha triggered the clamp, causing it to beep. The lights turned green and door slid open rapidly.

"Yes!" Martha cried, victorious. Maybe they could do this after all.

Riley ran towards Martha and the door. "Only twenty-eight more to go!"

**ΘΣ … ΘΣ … ΘΣ**

Rose really wished she could say that she knew what she was doing.

She didn't.

McDonnell, Ashton, Scannell, and Erina had gave her the 101 on how the engine was basically supposed to work, and Rose could barely wrap her head around it although she hid her ignorance from the others because if she looked hopeless then so would they. Luckily, she understood the basics well enough not to look like a complete idiot when she tried to contribute to the discussion. Unfortunately, it looked like the damn thing would practically have to be rebuilt from scratch, which at this point was impossible.

Taking a break while the others put their heads together (actually, she strongly suspected that they were gossiping about herself and Martha), Rose headed for the intercom and paged the medical center.

"Abi, how's Korwin doing?"

Just saying Korwin's name was enough to remind her of how terrifying it had been to be in the same room as him while he was conscious. Rose pushed the memory and the frightened shiver accompanying it aside and listened for Abi's response.

"_He's under heavy sedation. I'm just trying to make sense of this data. Give me a couple minutes and I'll let you know_."

Rose frowned at the confusion in Abi's voice, but agreed with her and signed off. Disturbed by her uneasiness, she contacted Martha before she could think better of it.

"Martha? Riley? How're you doing?"

"_Area twenty-eight, door twenty-seven_!"

Rose frowned. They had only gotten through two doors. They needed to move much faster if they had any hope of getting to the controls in time.

Rose was then distracted by Scannell, who started trying to explain a new – and utterly stupid and ineffectual – idea to Rose, who tried to tell him what an idiot he was without expressly saying so, which was all in all a huge waste of time that they didn't have.

"_And did you know there's such thing as happy numbers_?"

Rose chuckled as Martha's voice filtered through the speaker, cheering her up almost instantly. She held up a finger for Snannell to wait and muttered, "It wouldn't surprise me."

"_I can't believe our lives depend on some stupid pub quiz_!" Martha grumbled. "_Is that the next one_?" she asked Riley, sounding shocked.

Rose heard Riley groan as she once again tried to explain to Scannell that no, her sonic screwdriver could _not_ put this little piece of useless engine back together.

"We need NEW resources," she tried to tell him. 'Course, she'd been trying to explain that for a while.

"_Oh, this is a nightmare! Classical music. Who had the most pre-download number ones, Elvis…Prez-ley or The Bee-attles. How're we supposed to know that_?"

Rose giggled quietly at his mispronunciations and Scannell, also listening, rolled his eyes.

"_Rose?_" said Martha. "_You hearing this?_"

"Elvis," Rose answered confidently. Her mum had been a sickeningly huge fan of the King, although personally she liked The Beatles more, if she had to choose. To her irritation, thinking about the current crisis and The Beatles at the same time got 'Here Comes the Sun' playing on repeat in her head. _Little darling, it's been a…_ _Shut up!_ she mentally growled at her wayward mind.

"_Are you sure?_"

Rose frowned. Dammit, Martha had to make her second-guess herself, didn't she.

"Yeah, but you better call someone and get them to make sure. I'm a bit distracted down here."

Martha sounded a bit put out when she said, "_Fine, I'll ask someone else._"

Rose felt a stab of guilt, but turned back to the room at large.

"And I say, it's all right," she muttered. Scannell, to her surprise, hid a grin.

**ΘΣ … ΘΣ … ΘΣ**

Martha called the first person who came to mind – her mother.

Francine Jones picked up the phone on the second ring without looking at who was calling. It was early in the morning, after all, and she was just making coffee.

Martha was amazed that Rose's 'Universal Roaming' thing actually worked.

"Mum? It's me, it's Martha. …Wow." She'd have to remember to get something extra-special for Rose's birthday…whenever that was.

Unfortunately, she forgot that her mother had been rather angry when she had left with Rose.

"_Where are you? Don't you check your messages? I've been calling you!_"

Martha could already feel a headache forming. _Mothers_, honestly. Riley was staring at her strangely and a bit impatiently, but she tried to ignore that.

"Actually," she said, "a bit busy. Need you to do something for me."

Fracine, stubborn as she was, would have none of it.

"_No, listen to me. We have to talk about this Rose Tyler._"

Martha was on the verge of ripping her hair out in frustration. "Mum! Please, not now! I need you to look something up on the Internet!"

Her mum scoffed incredulously. "_Do it yourself. You've got a computer._"

Argh! A sharp flash of irritation made her glare down at the phone and snap, "Oh just do it, will you!" Afterwards, she shared a startled look with Riley. It wasn't like her to be so bossy. She laughed a little and added sheepishly, "Please?"

Her mum wasn't happy, of course. Martha wouldn't have been, either, if anybody had talked to her like that.

"_When did you get so rude? Oh, I'll tell you when. Ever since you met that bitch._"

Martha clenched the phone so tightly she thought she might break it. She held it away from her ear for a moment as she fought the urge to throw the damn thing against the wall, screech at her mother, or something else equally unproductive. She breathed deeply through her nose and released it slowly through her teeth while Riley gave her a concerned glance with his eyebrows raised. She tried to reassure him with a smile, but it probably looked like a grimace.

"Don't you _ever_ call her that again," Martha managed to say quite calmly through gritted teeth as she replaced the phone against her ear. "I need to know who had more number ones: Elvis or The Beatles?"

She was incredibly proud of herself for not blowing her top. Usually she didn't have that much control over her temper.

There was some rustling down the line, and then her mum said, "_Hold on, the mouse is unplugged._" Martha half-screamed in annoyance, feeling like her bones were going to crawl out of her skin if this took much longer. "_Okay, I'm on. What is this? Pub quiz_?"

"Yeah," said Martha, willing to say damn near anything to get her mum to hurry up, "a pub quiz."

"_Using your mobile is cheating,_" her mother scolded, but Martha could hear her clicking anyway.

"Have you found it yet?"

"_There's over four hundred thousand results. Give me a minute._"

Both Martha and Riley were getting antsy with anticipation. The countdown had already passed twenty-nine minutes. Martha paced up and down the length of the section to rid herself of some of her nervous energy. She wondered how Rose was doing, if she was any closer to finding a better solution. She wondered about her warning, and Korwin's condition. She had a bad feeling that whatever had happened to Korwin was only the start of bad shit happening in the next half hour.

"_Elvis._"

Martha jumped, having somehow almost forgotten that she was even on the phone.

"What? Really?" She pointed at the screen for Riley's benefit. "Elvis," she told him, relieved. She should have just trusted Rose's first answer.

The door opened as quickly as the last two.

"Mum, you're a star!" said Martha to her phone.

"_Now, we need to have a serious_ – "

Suddenly, the intercom erupted with a blood-curdling scream, stopping Martha and Riley in their tracks.

"_What was that?_"

Martha shared a wide-eyed expression with Riley.

"I've gotta go," she said shakily and ended the call before her mum could say anything else.

**ΘΣ … ΘΣ … ΘΣ**

"Resources!" Rose half-shouted to get herself and the others back on track. A proverbial light bulb burst to life over her head. "The power's working, isn't it? So there's got to be a generator. We could use that – "

"To jump-start the ship," McDonnel finshed Rose's thought and Rose grinned at her. See, she could be brilliant sometimes.

"If nothing else, it'll give us a bit more time."

"That," said McDonnell slowly, as if she could hardly believe it, "…is brilliant."

Rose beamed. "And you were all ready to give up hope! Keep fighting to the end, I say! We've found our ray of hope."

"If it works," Scannell interjected. Rose's spirits weren't meant to be brought down, though. Oh, no. She wanted to get _the fuck_ away from this sun and the creepy uneasiness she felt around it.

"Oh believe me," said McDonnell, looking as determined as Rose felt, "you're gonna make it work."

Scannell hung his head and walked off, leaving Ashton and Rose to stare admiringly at McDonnell.

Suddenly, Abi's voice came over the intercom.

"_Rose, these readings are starting to scare me._"

Rose's fear began to return, replacing their brief ray of sunshine – no pun intended. "What d'you mean?"

"_Well…Korwin's body's changing! His whole biological make-up, it…it's impossible._"

Rose really hated that word.

There was a loud noise over the intercom, and a second later, Abi's panicking voice rose over the intercom, "_This is the med center. Urgent assistance requested! Urgent assistance!_"

Rose's eyes widened, and she took off running without any further thought.

"Stay there," she shouted over her shoulder. "Keep working!"

Predictably, McDonnell completely ignored the order and so they both sprinted to the medical center. Rose was so focused on the battering of her heartbeat against her ribcage that at first she didn't notice the second set of footsteps following her, but when she did she stopped abruptly.

Scannell had been following them. Rose saw red.

"I told you to stay in engineering!" she yelled at him.

"I only take orders from one person!"

Rose narrowed her eyes at him but before she could say anything, Scannell took off running ahead of her. Cursing, she and McDonnell followed.

As they were approaching the med center, they continued to listen to the chatter coming over the intercom.

"_Burn with me_."

A terrified scream echoed over the intercom and this, in conjunction with Korwin's words, froze her blood. She exchanged a look with McDonnell and redoubled her pace. A second later, she heard Martha's frightened voice.

"_Rose, what were those screams?_"

"Concentrate on those doors, Martha! You've got to keep moving forward!"

There was no reply, so Rose assumed that Martha had done so. She was avidly aware of the time ticking by far too quickly.

"_Impact in twenty-seven, six._"

Shortly behind Scannell, Rose and McDonnell shot through the plastic sheets covering the doorway to the medical center and stopped abruptly. Korwin's bed was empty.

"Korwin's gone…" whispered McDonnell disbelievingly.

Scannell turned and froze. "Oh my God."

Rose and McDonnell turned to see what he was staring at. On the wall was the charred outline of a human figure with its hand in the air. She trembled but tried to hide it, remembering where she had seen something similar in the past. It was after the explosion on Egna. Her memories of the time immediately following the explosion were fuzzy because she had been badly injured (as in, charred to the bone like her mum's one and only attempt at barbecue), but she remembered what the room had looked like, and she remembered seeing the outline of either Tilo or Yika on the wall right next to the stairs, them having not quite been able to make it to the relative safety of the stairwell. They had been vaporized by the intensity of the microfield manipulator's explosion.

Her fingers lightly traced the outline of what had to have been Abi.

"Endothermic vaporization," she murmured senselessly. "'Burn with me.'"

"That's what we heard Korwin say," Scannell stated the obvious.

"What?" McDonnell stared back and forth between them. "D'you think–? No way! Scannell, tell her – Korwin's not a killer! He can't vaporize people! He's human!"

Yeah, well, Rose was supposed to be human as well, wasn't she?

She saw the bio-scan and x-ray results that Abi must have been scanning moments before her death on the floor. Rose bent to pick them up and looked them over, finding the read-outs surprisingly easy to understand, although she could certainly see why Abi would have been confused.

"Internal temperature one hundred degrees…" she read out loud. "Oxygen replaced by hydrogen? Infection…well, that's an understatement."

McDonnell ripped the results from Rose's hands. "The results are wrong!"

Rose wasn't listening. Her heart had begun to pound fearfully.

"Where's the ship been?" she asked. "Have you been on any planets recently?" McDonnell stared at her. "Had contact with other vessels? Anything?"

"What is this? An interrogation?"

"He's infected with something," said Rose, trying to remain calm. "We have to stop him before he kills again."

"We're just…a cargo ship," said McDonnell helplessly, turning away. Scannell put a comforting arm around her. Rose would have been sympathetic if she weren't so damn scared.

"Rose, if you'd just give her a minute – "

"I'm fine!" McDonnell interrupted, brushing him off and stubbornly wiping away any tears that may have fallen during her hysterics. "I need to warn the crew." With that, she walked over the intercom. "Everyone listen to me! Something has infected Korwin. We think…" she paused. Rose put a hand on her shoulder. "He killed Abi Lerner. None of you must go anywhere near him, is that clear?"

"Understood Captain," came Ashton's response from engineering.

"_Impact in twenty-four, fifty-one_."

There didn't seem to be any pattern to the computer's announcements, and it was starting to annoy Rose, who had no idea what to do about Korwin because she couldn't fucking _think_.

"Is the infection permanent? Can you cure him?"

Rose looked McDonnell solemnly, unable to tell the truth because she knew – she _knew_ how painful it would be to hear. "I don't know."

"Don't lie to me, Rose. Eleven years we've been married. We chose this ship together. He keeps me honest. So I don't want false hope."

"It's too strong; you're husband's gone. There's no way back. I'm sorry."

Quietly, McDonnell nodded and said, "Thank you."

Rose couldn't take it, even if the captain could.

"Are you _certain_ that nothing happened to provoke this? That nobody's working on some secret project or experiment…because it's absolutely vital that you tell me if there is."

"I know every inch of this ship. I know every detail of my crew's lives. There is nothing."

Rose narrowed her eyes at her, but said nothing else.

**ΘΣ … ΘΣ … ΘΣ**

"Rose," reported Martha, only a little out of breath, "we're through to area seventeen_._"

"_Keep going_," Rose encouraged almost tonelessly. Martha frowned worriedly. Something was wrong with Rose, but with everything else going on, Martha hadn't been able to figure out what. "_You've got to get to area one and reboot those engines_."

Riley was having more difficulty with this one, though, and he hit the terminal out of frustration. "Come _on_!" he growled. "Everything on this ship is so cheap!"

There was loud bang and they both whipped around in the direction of the noise.

"Who's there?"

When the noise continued, Martha and Riley put down their tools and cautiously investigated. They saw a humanoid figure through the waves of heat and smoke.

"Is that Korwin?" said Martha, frightened.

"No," said Riley. "Wait a minute…" the figure came into clearer view, wearing a strange helmet that Martha thought rather resembled a welder's mask. Riley recognized him. "Oh, Ashton, it's you. What're you doing?"

"Burn with me."

Martha had a really, really bad feeling about this.

"Well, if you wanna help," started Riley.

"Burn with me. Burn with me!"

When Ashton's hand moved toward his helmet, Martha knew they were in trouble. But then she noticed that they were standing right next to a door and she slammed her palm on the button that made it open.

"Move!" She slipped through the door as soon as it was open enough and pressed her back against the wall at the far end. "Come on!" Riley followed her and punched at the keypad next to the door.

When the door closed, they both sighed with relief. Ashton stuck his masked face up to the small circular window in the door and began to pound on it, making Martha jump. Riley did something else on the keypad that made a hatch open up in the wall beside them. They climbed in, shut the door, and waited for the next turd to roll.

Martha wasn't sure where they were, as it was such a small room with no distinguishable features, but they weren't being attacked by whatever had possessed Ashton, and that was what mattered.

"What is happening on this ship?" Riley was panicking.

"Never mind that, where are we?"

It was the computer voice, not Riley, that answered her. "_Airlock sealed. Jettison escape pod._"

Say _what_?

"That doesn't mean us?"

In response, Riley jumped toward the keypad and began frantically punching in codes. This was not happening. This could not be happening.

Rose wouldn't let this happen.

"ROSE!"

"_Pod jettison initiated._"

If possible, Riley poked at the damn keypad even faster, but it didn't seem to be doing any good. Luckily, there seemed to be a communications unit right next to it, so Martha tried to do her part and use that.

"Rose! We're stuck in an escape pod off the area seventeen airlock! One of the crew's trying to jettison us! You've got to help us!"

Martha felt like she was starting to hyperventilate, but was too terrified to attempt to control her breathing. She looked desperately at Riley.

"Tell me you can stop it."

"_Jettison held._"

That was a yes. Martha and Riley smiled at each other in relief. "Thank you," Riley breathed, although who he was thanking was unclear.

"_Jettison reactivated._"

And then that happened.

Martha screamed and pounded on the door, blood pounding so hotly in her veins she thought she'd boil from the inside out purely from fear. Riley spun around and resumed fighting the system.

Rose would get to them. She had to. She would stop Ashton.

"Come on," muttered Riley. Martha didn't like how desperate he sounded. "Geovinsci sequence. This'll get him."

"_Jettison held. Escape pod stabilized._"

They couldn't help but sigh with relief once again. Martha prayed it would hold this time.

She looked at Riley and said quietly, "You're pretty good."

He'd be better than good if he didn't have to do it at all. Where the hell was Rose?

"_Jettison activated._"

Not _again_! This time, the announcement was accompanied by sirens and flashing lights. Martha looked expectantly at Riley, who was staring dumbly at the keypad.

"He's smashed the circuit. I can't stop it." As if realizing what he said, his eyes widened he began to panic all over again. "I can't stop it!"

"_Airlock sealed._"

Martha uselessly smashed herself against the door and its porthole using her shoulder, her fists, everything, but there was no point. "This thing's locked!"

"_Airlock decompression completed. Jettisoning pod._"

As the pod disengaged, Martha saw Rose through the porthole and called her name. Riley tried to tell her that it was too late, but she screamed at Rose anyway, as if Rose would hear and that would be all she needed to save them. Rose had to save them. She_had_ to.

"I'll save you!" she saw Rose mouth; it was impossible to hear anything.

Martha continued to stare despondently out the porthole until Rose turned and left.


	17. Burn With Me, Part II

**Episode Eight**

**Burn With Me, Part II**

After coming to the conclusion that Korwin had killed Abi, Rose, McDonnell and Scannell returned to the engine room. It was bizarrely quiet, though parts of the engine were still steaming and hissing as if accusing them of the destruction.

McDonnell and Scannell called out for Ashton and Erina. Rose ventured past them to a storage cupboard and stopped. She bowed her head in guilt, grief, weariness-she was numb to the horror by this point in her life.

Another one gone. Erina, if she remembered the size and shape of the woman correctly.

Things had gone too far. Something was killing these people and it had to stop.

Somehow, just the mere thought of trying to stop whatever was possessing Korwin sent an icy lance of sheer terror straight through Rose's stomach. Whatever possessed Korwin was strong enough to completely change a body's DNA and make it something else. The similarity to Bad Wolf was unmistakable and quite possibly the primary source of Rose's instinctive fear of the thing. Her own DNA was already changing, or fully changed if her latest test results had been anything to go by, and yet she could not utilize the abilities that her changed DNA gave her without burning into nothingness. She was vulnerable, and she hated that feeling.

But no matter how Rose felt about the thing, it had to be stopped.

"Why is this happening?" McDonnell still hadn't seen the charred outline of Erina.

Then Martha's voice came over the intercom, sounding so frantic Rose felt every cell in her body freeze.

"Stay here," she ordered McDonnell and Scannell as she started running. "I mean it this time! And jump-start those engines!"

Behind her, McDonnell and Scannell saw what Rose had been staring at.

"It's picking us off. One by one."

Rose's passage to area seventeen was a blur. Her blood was churning with anger and fear and guilt – if anything happened to Martha…

There was a tall figure in protective gear and a space helmet standing in front of a keypad that presumably controlled the escape pod, but Rose didn't think it was Korwin. It must have been Ashton. Rose's hands started shaking and she clenched them tight only to have the shivering spread all over her skin. Ashton was possessed. She could _feel_ it. It was like there was something moving, writhing inside of Ashton and she could almost see it.

In fact, as she dared for just a moment to focus on one finger until she saw his thread, she literally could see it. The thread was pulsing angrily and twisting in on itself, tendrils snapping out into thin air and disappearing, the timestream rushing, raging, boiling over into an uncontrollable fury.

"Stop!" said Rose firmly with false bravado, amazed that her voice did not waver. Ashton turned to look at her almost contemplatively, tilting his head to one side, curious. "What do you want? Why infect these people? Tell me!"

Ashton turned and drove his fist straight through the control pad next to the door. Rose could see warning lights flash through the porthole of the escape pod. Then he faced Rose, who was suddenly so petrified with terror that all she could do was stand there, trembling.

"Wh-what are you?" she stuttered. Her voice was barely louder than a whisper; her throat refused to cooperate when she tried to swallow. Ashton stood mere inches away from her, and Rose imagined that his eyes were boring directly into her soul and scorching it.

Ashton began to lift the visor on his helmet, then suddenly doubled over as if he had been suckerpunched in the gut. He staggered, increasing the distance between him and Rose, but made no noise. A second later, he straightened up and made a beeline for the open doorway behind Rose, completely disregarding her. She blew out an inaudible sigh of relief when he was gone.

She went to the intercom on the closest wall.

"McDonnell, Ashton's heading in your direction. He's been infected, just like Korwin!"

"_Korwin's dead, Rose_."

Scannell's voice seemed stark and overly severe and Rose ached for this whole thing to be _over_.

But Martha was still in danger.

Rose ran to the door just in time to see the escape pod disengage from the ship. She watched with horror as Martha screamed her name in silence.

"I'll save you!" she promised.

She had to.

"_Impact in seventeen, five._"

The only way to do that was to go outside and manually recall the escape pod. She wasn't sure if that was possible, but she had no choice except to try.

"Scannell," she said to the speakers on the intercom. Her voice was rougher than she expected it sound, and she was surprised to find that her vision was slightly blurry. Her nerves were frazzled by anger, frustration, fear, and, worst of all, helplessness. She hadn't been this stressed since she had seen the Doctor lose his grip and plummet toward the Void. "I need a spacesuit in area seventeen, now."

"_What for?_"

"Just get it!"

A minute later, Scannell appeared with a spacesuit that looked horrifyingly similar to the one the Doctor had used when they were trapped in the hellhole that was Krop Tor. She ignored her distaste and shed her jacket, reluctantly handing it over to Scannell, who looked at her like she was insane. The heat of the ship seemed to intensify by ten. She pretended not to notice Scannell's stare but accepted his help in getting strapped into the apparatus. She told him what she intended to do as she got ready.

"Martha and Riley are trapped in that escape pod. I need to recall it."

"Do you even know how to do that?"

Rose didn't miss a beat, fastening a buckle tightly.

"No."

"I shouldn't let you do this."

Rose smirked.

"You can't stop me."

"I only know it would waste more time to try."

"Good boy. Now tell me what I need to do."

Scannell scoffed, but then hesitantly explained that there was no way to actually recall the pod – she would need to remagnetize the thing that held it to the ship; or at least, that was what Rose got out of it. Scannell seemed to think that telling her every gruesome detail – how she'd have to fight the vacuum every second of the way, how the heat was nearly hot enough to vaporize her in her suit – would deter Rose from going at all.

Rose took in every instruction and memorized every aspect, but when Scannell finished, he handed her the helmet and looked her seriously in the eye.

"They're too far away, you know. It's too late."

"I'm not losing Martha, and Riley doesn't deserve to die. Oh, and while I'm out there, keep opening those damn doors," she nodded at the equipment Martha and Riley had abandoned when they were attacked by Ashton. "We need those auxiliary engines."

She fastened the helmet securely and Scannell tested it to make sure it was on properly. She knew he was even considering offering to take her place, but he knew perfectly well that she wouldn't allow that, either. It was something Rose had picked up from the Doctor, she supposed. When she said she was going to do something, she was going to do it. No delegating, no running, no giving up, and no being a pussy about it. She certainly wasn't sending someone else in her place. Besides, she was almost positive that it was going to take some of her more inhuman abilities to survive this, and Scannell was decidedly lacking in that area.

"You do realize that this close to the sun, the shields will only barely protect you."

She flashed an excited grin. "That's the fun part."

Creepy infection – bloody terrifying. Enduring the heat of the corona of a sun – just another day in the life.

"It's suicide! No one can survive that!"

She winked at him. "No one that's human, you mean." He stared at her in shock.

Rose turned around and opened the airlock door, which closed almost instantly behind her.

"_Decompression initiating._"

When it was finished, she pressed the button on the keypad that would open the exterior door.

"_Impact in eleven, fifteen. Heat shield failing at ten percent._"

A blast of intense heat like she had just stuffed her body into a broiling oven, in conjunction with the power of the vacuum of space, threatened to bowl her over. The light from the sun alone was blinding, nearly debilitating, even to her admittedly superior senses, but she had a tight grip on the frame of the airlock and enough determination to raze armies. It was a struggle, but she managed to sling herself onto the hull of the ship and cling to it for dear life.

The ship was hot, burning, melting, and Rose could feel it through the damn suit – it was burning her. Sweat streamed from every pore on her body, soaking her shirt, her hair, her jeans, fogging up the helmet and dripping steadily closer to her eyes, but she blinked away the stinging pain from everything and held on. A row of buttons to the right of the airlock taunted her nearly out of reach and when she touched the edge with her glove, she could feel the heat so searingly through the suit that she flinched and nearly let go.

The pain served to anger Rose enough to make her lunge with exactly the precision she needed to press the button Scannell had told her to.

She hung limply for a moment, panting, before attempting to reach the box on the other side of the buttons. Beads of sweat rained steadily from her face.

"_Rose, how are you doing?_"

"Can't reach," she grunted. She could feel bones popping as she extended her body as far as it would go without losing her grip on the ship. The heat was penetrating the suit so easily now it was like she was swimming in a vat of boiling water. Tears joined the sweat on her face as she fought to keep from crying out in pain.

No human, she thought, could possibly survive this. She felt like she was burning alive – and she knew from experience exactly how that felt. She wasn't sure what, exactly, was keeping her alive now, whether she was unconsciously using Bad Wolf to protect herself or if her DNA had changed enough that she actually could withstand such extreme heat without further aid, but the pain was nearly enough to make her wish she was dead.

"I don't know how much longer I can last," she admitted breathlessly, not sure if she was talking to Scannell or herself. She had retracted her arm, and it was sore as hell.

"_Come on! Don't give up now!_"

Belief. It didn't matter what was keeping her alive. It didn't matter that she could still feel that roiling fury she had felt in Ashton – the fury that scared her shitless – and it didn't matter that she was terrified, burning, and alone. Martha believed in her. Even Scannell believed in her. Rose believed…that she needed to do everything in her power to help them.

With a cry of effort and pain, Rose lunged for the box, popped it open, and used all of her might to slam down the lever that was inside of it.

In that moment, she felt something. A connection.

The fury that she had felt in Ashton's thread was literally burning. It was as hot as she felt right now, nearly set alight by the heat of the sun's corona. A heat that seemed to be seeping through her skin and straight into her bones, liquefying them.

She looked over her shoulder and stared straight into the sun, which frothed and roiled and pulsed, twisting in on itself, flares snapping out and tendrils disappearing into nothingness.

She focused and saw a thread equally chaotic, branching off to wherever Ashton had gone. Her eyes followed the manifestation of a timestream into the heart of the sun.

It was alive.

**ΘΣ … ΘΣ … ΘΣ**

Martha and Riley stared out the porthole into space. It was beautiful, Martha thought distantly. She had thought so during the catastrophic shuttle ride from the moon of Omega XVI to its planet as well, although she had hardly been in a position to admire anything. Now she had nothing to do but stare at the stars.

She was still positive that Rose would rescue them.

"The wonderful world of space travel," said Riley glumly. "The prettier it looks, the more likely it is to kill you."

"Rose will come for us."

How, Martha didn't know. She did know that time could be rewritten – but not so that it created paradoxes. Rose would survive because she had to just to keep the universe from falling apart. If she died now, she would never find the Doctor, and then the Doctor would never have been able to help Martha essentially bring Rose back from the dead. More than that, Martha knew that as long as Rose was alive, she would stop at nothing to protect her. It would be infuriating if it weren't for the fact that they frequently got into situations in which Martha needed protecting.

Riley did not have the benefit of Martha's experiences. He shook his head in denial. It was as if he had already accepted the fact of his death.

"Nah," he said. "It's too late. Our heat shields will pack in any minute, and then we'll go into freefall. We'll fall into the sun way before she has a chance to do anything."

Martha wasn't about to explain how complicated Rose's life could be, so she settled for saying, "You don't know Rose. I believe in her."

"Then you're lucky. I've never found anyone worth believing in."

Well, before Rose, Martha hadn't, either.

She turned to face him. The golden-orange light of the sun made him look even more ruggedly handsome, and she remembered with a slight flush how deftly his fingers had worked the keypad earlier. Riley's eyes were sad, but warm, and Martha found herself wishing that he understood why she believed so confidently that Rose would save them because his hopelessness was heart-wrenching.

"No one?" she said softly. "No girlfriend? Boyfriend?"

Riley quirked a half-smile that made her heart flutter a little.

"The job doesn't lend itself to stable relationships."

Looking at McDonnell and Korwin, Martha could agree with that.

"Family then?"

"My dad's dead. And I haven't seen my mum in…six years. She didn't want me to sign up for cargo tours. Things were said, and since then…all silent. She wanted to hold onto me, I know that. She's so stubborn!"

That sounded familiar.

"Yeah, well, that's family," Martha agreed, voice quivering.

Noticing this, Riley turned the tables. "What about you?"

"Full works. Mum, dad. Dad's girlfriend. Brother, sister. No silence there – so much noise. Oh God!" Martha stopped, tears blurring her vision. She turned her head to hide them from Riley. She felt a bit like she had when she was standing on the moon, admiring Earth with Rose beaming happily beside her. Not that she didn't think that Rose would save her, but…if she _did_ die…"They'd never know. I – I'd have just…disappeared! Rose would be blamed…. And they'd always be waiting."

"Call them."

Martha looked at him, startled, before numbly pulling out her phone.

A moment later, her mum picked up the phone.

"_Hello._"

That was a cold greeting.

"Me again," said Martha lamely. "Sorry about earlier."

"_Is everything all right?_"

"Yeah. Course."

How could she possibly tell her mother that she might, possibly, be on the verge of vaporizing?

"_Martha?_"

"Mum, I…you know I love you, don't you?"

Francine seemed to soften a little.

"_Course I do. What's brought this on?_"

"I never say it. Never get the time." How ironic. "I never think of it, and I…" her voice broke. "I really love you. Tell Dad, Leo, and Tish that I love them."

Unbeknownst to Martha, Francine was not alone. A blonde woman in a stark business suit sat at a table in the room with her, earphones in her ears, eavesdropping.

"_Martha, what's wrong?_"

"Nothing," said Martha quickly. "Promise."

"_Where are you?_"

"Just…out."

"_With anyone nice?_"

Martha smiled a bit at Riley.

"Some mates."

"_What mates?_"

Martha paused, frowning. What was with the interrogation?

"Mum, can we not just talk?

"_Of course. What do you want to talk about?_"

Martha rolled her eyes. "I dunno, anything! What you had for breakfast. What you watched on the telly last night. How much you're gonna kill Dad when you see him. Anything."

"_Is Rose Tyler with you? Is she there, now?_"

Really, of all times… Martha was _trying_ to have a normal conversation for once. Why did everything have to come back around to Rose? It wasn't like her mum truly _knew_ her, for God's sake! Tears slipped down her cheeks, but Martha barely noticed.

"Mum, just leave it."

"_It's a simple enough question_."

No, it wasn't.

"I'd better go."

The woman with the earphones gestured for Francine to keep her daughter talking.

"_Um, no, Martha, wait!_"

"See you, mum."

Martha stared blankly down at her phone. Sensing her distress – perhaps the tears gave it away – Riley gently took Martha in his arms and held her. She returned the hug and he placed a tiny kiss on her forehead, eliciting a sigh.

Suddenly, something seemed to yank them backwards like a fish hook had been snared around their navels. The display on the keypad read, "Remagnetizing."

"We're being pulled back!" Riley exclaimed happily.

"I told you! It's Rose!"

**ΘΣ … ΘΣ … ΘΣ**

Rose's worst fear, contrary to what she would have thought, was not of burning. She would have even been glad to say that she most feared losing Martha or even the TARDIS, since they, and her foolish hope, were all she had left worth living for in this universe. But her fears were not so noble, they were purely selfish. She feared being weak, vulnerable. She feared, above all, helplessness. As long as she could do something about a problem, there was a possibility that everything would turn out all right. As long as she possessed the means to fight back, it didn't matter if she ultimately lost.

Now, she was almost one hundred percent certain that nothing would ever be all right. She had lost before the fight had even begun, and that was why she had been so terrified around Korwin and Ashton while they were "infected." Because she was right, before. She was more vulnerable than any of them. It was all too easy for her to be possessed by a stronger creature.

It took everything Rose had to make it back into the airlock. It took even more than that to get out of the way of the damn escape pod before it crashed into her.

_Heat._ God, it was so _hot_. She was burning, but she was burning inside, and it was so different from burning outside, and so much worse, and so much more painful.

Rose ripped off her helmet and gasped for breath, greedily sucking oxygen into her lungs, feeling suffocated. She should have known better; fire feeds on oxygen. Her veins erupted with pain and she was too overwhelmed to scream.

She fell out of the airlock into area seventeen, falling to her knees, then flat on her face; she breathed quick, shallow breaths that weren't doing her any good. It would be easier to stop breathing entirely, except that every time she stopped she felt smothered by the heat.

Time seemed to slow to a crawl. No, it stoppeed completely. She was suspended in an endless moment of agony and defeat.

Rose realized in that moment the difference between the sun trying to possess her and the part of her that was Bad Wolf.

She _was_ Bad Wolf. The sun was a horribly invasive presence in her mind, her heart, her soul, boiling in her blood and evaporating her ability to speak.

The intense energy that she had consumed from the TARDIS burned because it was the heart of time and her human body simply could not take the pressure of being painfully aware of every atom in existence at every single point in time and space. The sun burned because it wanted to erase who and what she was at the very essence of her being; it was an infection, and she was burning with fever.

Bad Wolf could be controlled because it was not some foreign thing of energy – it was a part of her, as much a part of her as her mind was. Like a muscle that she had to exercise in order to use it at its full strength. A muscle that she had always been able to have, but had only started to develop when she stole a fraction of the essence of the energy she had consumed from the heart of the TARDIS. A muscle she was only capable of having because she had made it so, because she had changed something in the moment she was conceived in her mother's womb, had changed her body so that it would adapt to the energy of the vortex and take some of it to survive – to be able to fight for the Doctor.

It was when she tried to use the energy she had stolen to reconnect with the time vortex that had been in the heart of the TARDIS that the vortex itself consumed and began to kill her.

In fact, when she first looked into the heart of the TARDIS, she should have died. But she couldn't let it do that to her, so she had changed. In a brief instant where she controlled all of time and space, Rose had consciously changed the structure of her very DNA, an aspect of it that had remained hidden until exposure to time travel made her stronger.

Bad Wolf had always been a part of her; it had merely taken the energies locked within the TARDIS to awaken it. Her DNA was not changing, it was becoming what it was always meant to be. _She_ was becoming what she was always meant to be. While she would never be able to utterly manipulate all of time and space ever again, there were smaller things that she could do once her body had fully adjusted – like being able to see people's timestreams, healing her body when she was on the verge of death, being able to connect and communicate with the TARDIS, remembering details that should escape her…

She had gone far too long thinking of Bad Wolf as a separate entity, a source of power which she could only tap into when she was in great distress. She had been tapping into the vortex then, and had nearly died for it. She had gone far too long seeing Bad Wolf as merely her secret weapon that she had completely missed the obvious – there could be no Bad Wolf without Rose Tyler, and there could definitely be no Rose Tyler without Bad Wolf. There was a writhing ball of temporal energy inside of her that had nothing to do with the time vortex anymore because she had nurtured it to life within her body in order to survive the vortex on Satellite Five.

With this in mind, Rose found that as much as she feared the thing invading her body, _violating_ her, she hated it as well. Although she had already lost the fight and was well and truly infected by the living sun, everything within her rebelled against the scorching entity, including the temporal energy that she had for so long mistakenly characterized separately as "Bad Wolf."

Her inner reflections made the infection hurt no less, of course. Once she got used to her agony—and the numerous important revelations of soul discovered therein—time resumed moving, albeit at a slow and distorted pace.

"Rose!" Rose heard someone screaming from a great distance. "Rose! Are you okay?"

Someone touched her, moved her, and when Rose opened her eyes she saw Martha through an intense halo of golden light.

Her voice was nothing more than an animalistic, wolf-like growl when she roared, "Stay away from me!"

The sun did not like Rose speaking. A fresh wave of fire poured over her like waves of lava, and she bit her lip so hard her teeth went straight through it and blood dribbled freely down her chin, though she could barely feel it. She didn't want Martha to hear her scream.

"What's happened?"

McDonnell. _Captain McDonnell._

Rose allowed the sun to feed her own anger.

"It's _your_ fault, Captain McDonnell!" she roared, her voice still frighteningly wolf-like and growling. But it was her own voice, she was sure of that much, and it felt like a victory until the sun locked her muscles together so that she couldn't so much as writhe in pain anymore.

McDonnell said something else, but Rose didn't care. She could still speak – well, roar, anyway.

"You mined that sun! Stripped its surface for cheap fuel! You should have scanned for LIFE!"

"I don't understand."

"Rose, what are you talking about?"

Rose released a strangled scream, but somehow converted the pain into more rage. It was the only way her body could cope at this point, while the rest of her waged war. She needed McDonnell to know what she had done wrong so she could fix it.

"The sun is ALIVE!" Rose howled. "A _living_ being. They scooped out its heart, used it for fuel, and now it's screaming!"

A scream bubbled up in her throat and made it halfway out her throat before she wrestled it back down. Martha didn't need to hear that.

"What do you mean?" McDonnell still wasn't getting it. "How can a sun be alive? Why's she saying that?"

"_Because it's living in ME_!" To Rose's horror, it was the sun that spoke through her this time. Bad Wolf—or rather, the temporal energy roiling within her—howled at the defeat and she metaphorically clawed angrily at the entity of the sun, which bucked madly, sending white-hot pain rattling through every bone in her body.

"Oh my God," said McDonnell.

"_Humans!_" said the entity through Rose, who mentally cried out in terror at the grip she was losing on her own body. "_You grab whatever's nearest and bleed it dry!_"

Rose finally regained control, only to add, "You should have scanned!"

Both McDonnell and Martha appeared extremely perturbed by Rose's voice changes – neither voice even sounded human, Rose was sure.

"It takes too long!" cried McDonnell. "We'd be caught! Fusion scoops are illegal."

Rose hardly cared anymore. McDonnell knew now, that was good enough.

"Freeze me!" she begged Martha, snarling. Martha looked scared – of her or for her, Rose couldn't tell.

"What!"

"Stasis-thing," Rose growled, squeezing her eyes shut. "Cold as you can get. Freeze it out of me!"

The sun punished her severely for that, so severely Rose nearly passed out, which would have been fatal. She needed to remain conscious if she had any hope of retaining whatever sanity she had left.

"NOW! It will use me to kill you if you don't! The closer we get to the sun, the stronger it—" she stifled a scream; "—gets!"

"Help me!" Martha screamed at McDonnell.

McDonnel grabbed Rose's feet, Martha held Rose by her armpits, and together they heaved the sweating black-haired non-human to the medical center.

"_Impact in seven, thirty._"

Rose couldn't hold back the screams anymore as she was placed in the stasis chamber. "Cold as you can, no more than ooh, say, twenty seconds? Martha, have you got that?"

As Martha set the temperature for the thing ridiculously low, McDonnell tried to stop her. "No! you don't know how this equipment works, you'll kill her! No one can survive those temperatures."

"She's not human," Martha snapped. "If she says she can survive, she can."

"Let me help you, then."

"You've done enough damage," snarled Martha, pushing McDonnell away.

Meanwhile, Rose continued to helplessly fight the sun's restraints. It was a losing battle, it always was. She couldn't do it alone. It was overwhelming her, she was barely aware of anything going on outside her body, inside was an infernal chaos, a burning cacophony of indecipherable noise and screaming and _howling_ and she could _not_ do this alone!

"Martha!"

"Rose?"

Oh, thank God. She was here. It would be all right. It was _not_ all right. How could it be? She couldn't fight it. It was taking control, they were getting closer and it was taking control and it was going to kill everyone, it was going to kill Martha, and she was just laying here so freaking _helpless_…

"It's burning me, Martha. I can't control it! I can't—I-I could—I might—"

A flash of white-hot fury, and the sun spoke through her, "_I will kill you all. Burn with me – I will kill you all!_"

"Oh, God, Martha, I can't stop it!"

She was helpless and losing control and there was nothing she could do and the wolf was howling but it was dying and she was dying and the sun was winning, it would always win, and fuck she was scared—

"I'm scared, I'm so scared…"

Martha was _not_ supposed to see her like this, dammit.

"Just calm down, Rose, all right? You've saved me a dozen times, now I'm going to return the favor."

"It's fucking _killing me_! Then what, Martha; _then what_?"

"That's enough, now," said Martha as soothingly as she could. "I've got you. Just…just believe in me."

"Believe…" Rose mumbled. All rational thought had left her, including the epiphany she'd had about the temporal energy inside her. "I—I…I'm gonna die, Martha. I can't…I might regenerate, or something; I don't want to change, I can't..."

"Shh. Quiet now, 'cause that is not going to happen. You ready?"

"Yes."

And then Rose screamed.

An indeterminable length of time later, the intensity of the pain went back down to what it was before Martha started the freezing process—which meant it wasn't gone yet.

"No! Martha, you can't stop it yet!"

But something else was wrong.

"What's happened?" Martha demanded.

"Power's been cut in engineering," McDonnell deduced.

"But who's down there?"

McDonnell was grim.

"Leave it to me."

Another scream clawed its way up Rose's throat; the sun still had control of her body, so only her voice could express her pain.

"_Impact in four, forty-seven._"

The ice crystals that had formed on Rose's body melted in seconds. She was rapidly being overwhelmed.

"Martha!" she howled. "Go!"

"No way!"

"Get to the front and vent the engines; dump the fuel! Give back what they took!"

"Rose!"

Rose howled again, and snarled at Martha, "_Go_, dammit!"

Martha began to back away. "I'll be back for you."

"_Impact in four minutes, eight seconds._"

A couple minutes later, the sun coerced Rose's body into following Martha out the door, but she collapsed and started crawling instead. She couldn't keep the sun from attacking her anymore. Martha, far ahead, stopped and looked back at Rose.

"_Burn with me, Martha. Burn with me._"

**ΘΣ … ΘΣ … ΘΣ**

Scannell and Riley were oblivious to the happenigns on the ship as they worked frantically to open all the doors. With less than a minute and a half remaining until the ship plummeted into the sun, they finally got the last door open. Scannell and Riley ignored all the warning signs that the monitors were spewing at them, typing at a dizzying pace to boot the auxiliary engines.

"_Impact in one minute, six seconds._"

They rushed to the panel of buttons and switches, but nothing they did seemed to have any affect.

"It's not working! Why isn't it working?"

Martha finally reached area one, launchind herself into the room.

"Vent the engines," she ordered breathlessly. "Dump the fuel."

Riley and Scannell stopped what they were doing and stared at her.

"What?"

"Sun stuff in the fuel," Martha said, like that explained everything. "Get rid of it." They continued to stare. "Do it. Now!"

Scannell and Riley jumped and ran to opposite side of the room, where they spun the dials that released the fuel.

"Come on, Rose, hold on," murmured Martha.

One of them twisted the "fuel dispersal" wheel and the entire ship lurched. A readout on a screen showed the fuel being dumped from the bottom of the ship. The lurching of the ship was nearly as bad as the TARDIS on a good day, and Martha was flung from her feet.

"There!" Scannell exclaimed. "How're we gonna fly?"

The countdown hit zero, but the computer announced, "_Impact averted. Impact averted._"

They were all breathing heavily as they got to their feet.

"We're clear," said Riley. "We've got just enough reserves."

Scannell and Riley were so relieved they flew together in a quick hug. Martha only smiled for a second before realizing that Rose was still back where she had left her.

When Martha got to her, Rose was weakly pulling herself to her feet. She looked exhausted, sweaty, sore, and all around like shit, but her eyes were no longer burning with that awful light and Martha barreled into her and held on like her life depended on it. Still weak, Rose stumbled until her back hit a wall, then she returned Martha's embrace with as much strength as she could muster, which, to Martha's concern, wasn't much. But still, Martha, giddy, spun them around in a little circle and giggled at the dazed look in Rose's eyes when she pulled back enough to see them. Rose smiled. Martha felt a warmth that had nothing to do with that damn sun.

A short while later, Rose and Martha raced to area thirty, where they found the TARDIS. Rose had stripped off her spacesuit and Martha cleaned the cut on her lip, which had been pouring blood all the way down Rose's chest but wasn't really as bad as it looked. Rose had been a bit put out that some of the blood had stained her shirt, but Martha was just relieved that it hadn't been worse. Then again, she suspected that there were other, less visible injuries that Rose was trying to hide – she moved stiffly, like her mucles were sore everywhere, and her eyes were clouded with exhaustion. She had wiped off her sweat with limbs that trembled too much to keep Martha from noticing, and her skin was horrifyingly pale.

Riley and Scannell joined them in the venting chamber and stood staring in disbelief at the apparently tiny ship. Rose and Martha paced around the outside to make sure there wasn't so much as a scorch mark while Scannell mumbled about the impossibility of its size and its survival and Rose proudly rebuked him for doubting. Scannell returned Rose's leather jacket. Martha still wasn't sure why Rose wore it when it was so hot, but wouldn't say anything about it. It looked damn good on her, after all.

"We can't just leave them drifting with no fuel." Martha said as she frowned at Rose, who looked eager to get going. She was sure the men hadn't noticed, but Rose was still shaking and to Martha's observant eye appeared far more worn-out and tired than Martha had ever seen.

"We've sent out an official mayday," Riley assured them both with a twinkle in his eyes. "The authorities will pick us up soon enough."

"Though how we'll explain what happened…"

Rose opened the TARDIS. "Tell the truth. That sun just needs a little TLC, like any other living creature."

The men looked doubtful, but Martha smiled at Rose and Scannell nodded. Rose stepped inside the TARDIS, but Riley stopped Martha before she could follow.

"So, uh, you're off then." Martha nodded. She had thought about asking Rose to let Riley travel with them, but somehow she thought that Rose would disapprove. Besides, Rose needed her right now, whether she wanted to admit it or not, and sadly, Riley would only get in their way. Riley needed to rebuild his life here; make something better for himself than an illegal cargo ship. "No chance I'll see you again?"

"Not really." That was a really terrible way to say goodbye, though, and she thought Riley deserved more than that. He was a good guy. "It was nice…not dying with you." They laughed awkwardly. "I reckon you'll find someone worth believing in."

"I think I already did."

Martha hesitated. But she was sick of thinking too much, and she just wanted to say goodbye properly. So she lunged forward and softly touched her lips to Riley's. Riley was startled at first, but returned the kiss. Scannell just stood there, politely looking the other way and not saying anything.

Afterwards, she had no idea what to say. "Well done. Very hot."

Riley laughed a little. Martha gathered up her willpower and strode into the TARDIS, closing the door behind her.

"So!" She teased as she walked in. "Didn't really need you in the end, did we?"

Rose was scowling at the TARDIS's time rotor, which was flickering oddly. Martha had a weird feeling that she was somehow communicating with the ship. Reuniting with it or something. Her smile and good mood faded.

"Sorry. How're you doing?"

She was almost positive that Rose was going to push her away like she had done several times before. And in a way, she was right. Rose didn't speak to or look at her, but she reached up to her neck and pulled out the necklace that Martha had noticed her wearing after she had changed out of the spacesuit. Rose removed the necklace from around her head and held it up to the light. At the end of the chain, a silver key seemed to shine gold for a brief second.

Rose offered the chain to Martha. Martha stared at it, wide-eyed.

"Is this—?"

She couldn't finish. Rose was still scowling at the console, avoiding Martha's gaze. Martha ignored the proffered key and used her hand instead to gently grip Rose's chin and turn her head to face her. Rose didn't struggle, which worried her slightly. The hand holding the key was shaking, and Martha enclosed her free hand around it to make it stay still. Rose's hand was abnormally cold and clammy.

Their eyes met. Martha saw fear in Rose's eyes, a bone-deep fear that could hardly be translated into words. And she knew, she somehow _knew_ that Rose was fighting not to run away from her again. She was fighting to let herself be vulnerable around Martha. Martha stood very still, hardly daring to breathe, as Rose warred with herself.

Finally, she couldn't take it anymore.

"What did it feel like?" Martha whispered.

"It was the most terrifying thing I have ever experienced."

Martha waited, but Rose said no more. In fact, the war seemed to have been resolved, and Rose was resolving to draw back before she let too much of herself out. Rose turned their clasped hands so that Martha was holding the key instead. Then she turned away.

"Waters of Trinity," she said, an unnatural happiness in her voice. "Never been there, but I've read about it, an' it sounds beautiful, so we should go laugh at how ugly it is. What d'you think?"

Was she serious? Martha clenched the key so tightly in her hand she could feel the metal digging into her skin.

"I'm tired," said Martha crossly. "I nearly got plunged into a sun, so I think I'll rest for a bit. How about we just sit down and talk for a while?"

Rose scowled, but Martha could have imagined it, it was gone so quickly.

"All right, well, Trinity is supposed to be very relaxing. I guess that's a good place to sit and talk."

"I meant on the TARDIS."

Rose shrugged. "All right, go on, then. Rest up. There's a few things I've got to fix on the ship anyway."

"Don't you dare."

"Sorry?"

Martha marched up to Rose and jabbed the key in her chest like she was pointing a finger at her. "I said, don't you _fucking_ dare."

Rose smirked. "Actually, I didn't hear the 'fucking' part the first time."

Martha tried not slap her. It was one of the hardest things she ever had to do.

"I believe in you, Rose Tyler." Rose rolled her eyes and opened her mouth, but Martha dug the key in deeper, almost breaking the skin. "Let me finish, dammit. I believe in you, but I have no idea who you are. You say you were born and raised in London, yet you're obviously not human. I have been to hell and back for you, I've almost _died_ countless times—and for what? A complete stranger? You know, I can live with that, with believing in a complete stranger, but there are times when I think that knowing could be big help. Like when I had to practically bring you back from the dead after New York. Do you have any idea how _hard_ that was? It should have been impossible! And I don't even know what caused it in the first place! I've given a lot for you, Rose Tyler, and I can't even begin to comprehend why. All I know is that you traveled with an insane man in a magic blue box, then he disappeared and left you to carry on his legacy. You don't have to do that alone."

Martha was breathing heavily by the end of her rant. When Rose winced slightly, she realized that the key had, in fact, broken the skin on her chest. She pulled away quickly, muttering an apology.

Rose watched her silently, a strange look on her face.

"Follow me."

That was all she said before turning on her heel and disappearing into the depths of the TARDIS. Martha grumbled good-naturedly but resigned herself to the fact that she would always follow Rose, no matter where she was going. She slipped the key around her neck and trailed after her.

They stopped at a door Martha had never seen before, which wasn't saying a whole lot. There had to be millions of rooms in the TARDIS, and it was damn near impossible to find a specific one unless the TARDIS was in a good mood and decided to help out. Martha was positive that the corridors and rooms frequently switched around just to fuck with her head.

This particular door was not really spectacular—in fact, it looked quite ordinary—but the way Rose reverently opened it gave Martha some pause.

The inside of the room, if it could accurately be called that, was breathtaking. The door opened up into a field of deep crimson grass that grew around Martha's ankles. It smelled sweet and comforting, like cherries and pumpkin pie. The sky was the most amazing shade of orange she had ever seen, giving the appearance that it had been set on fire. In the far-off distance was what looked like a massive domed city made of glass and high-reaching spires.

When she walked inside and Rose closed the door behind her, Martha turned around to see not the door, but miles and miles of the red grass stretching on until it reached the base of gigantic mountains that somehow seemed to sway and dance in the light breeze that flitted across her face. There were a few trees providing shade—or at least, Martha assumed that they were trees, for the trunks were dark as night and the leaves were crystalline and silver, tinkling softly in the breeze, shining brightly on Rose's face as she made herself comfortable at the roots of one of the trees.

After a moment, Martha joined her.

"Gallifrey," Rose answered Martha's unspoken question. The red grass was unbelievably soft under Martha's fingers, nothing like the coarse green stuff on Earth. "It technically doesn't exist. It was locked out of time centuries ago, destroyed in the Last Great Time War. There are no records of it, or pictures. There are only legends now, and rumors. The home of the Time Lords."

Martha said nothing. She was afraid.

"This," Rose gestured around them vaguely. "Isn't real. It's a memory. The TARDIS's memory. Like a Holodeck that the TARDIS controls. The Doctor showed me this room a few months before the Battle of Canary Wharf. I come here when I want to stop thinking."

Martha opened her mouth then, wanting to ask about the Doctor, but then stopped. It wasn't her turn anymore. She'd had her say. Rose nodded at her as if she was proud that Martha had come up with the appropriate answer to her thoughts.

"You'd think that this is where I would miss him the most. But it's…difficult. It's hard to feel sad in a place like this."

Martha nodded before she could stop herself. She could definitely feel what Rose meant. It was peaceful here. Quiet, but not in a bad way.

"You are welcome to come here anytime you want, after we're done here."

"If I can find it," Martha muttered. Rose quirked a half-smile.

"Right." She blew out a breath, removing a strand of dark hair from in front of her face. "I spent two months in here after the Battle." Martha's brows shot straight up. Rose nodded, smiling knowingly. "Yeah, I know. I didn't really do anything, either. I couldn't; not because I was grieving, because like I said, it's hard to feel miserable in this place. The TARDIS's memory of Gallifrey is not a sad one, even though the planet's gone, you know? But the peace…it is addicting. I didn't want to know anything else. I didn't want to grieve, or move on, or find him and my famlily, or do _anything_, really. So I could literally do little else but sit here and stare at the sky. I think I was physically sick, for a while. Then I realized that I wasn't eating. Or sleeping. Sometimes, I don't think I was even breathing. At some point, the TARDIS convinced me to leave. The TARDIS is a ship, after all; she was made to be flown, made to be traveled in. Sitting around doing nothing was as bad for her as it was cathartic for me.

"I still didn't eat. Or sleep, or anything. But without this," she waved her arm at the endless field of red, "I was restless. I needed to…_move_. I needed to run. We were very good at that, the Doctor and I. So the TARDIS took me someplace where I got into trouble almost immediately." Martha snorted; _typical_. "I ran for a bit, got back on the TARDIS, and she took me somewhere else. Eventually she taught me how to choose where I wanted to go, how to fly her. But before that, it was jus' aimless drifting. Anywhere, anytime, doing anything I could think of doing. It was the only way I knew to cope.

"More than a year of that, linear time-wise, and the TARDIS detected something weird going on at Royal Hope. I hadn't been back on Earth, let alone London, since the Battle. But I decided it was time; took care of my mother's affairs, which I should have done long ago, added her and a few others to the list of the dead, even though they weren't, and then went about seeing what I could do for the hospital. You know how that turned out."

Martha nodded unnecessarily. Rose took a moment to pause, leaning back against the tree and closing her eyes. Martha shifted so that she was lying down with her head in Rose's lap; like she had hoped, the corners of Rose's solemn mouth twitched upwards. One of her hands rested on Martha's head.

"The reason I'm telling you this, Martha, isn't because I'm _finally_ opening up to you, if that's what you're thinking. There is still one thing that I can't tell you about yet. There are just so many things I'm still just barely understanding about myself. About what I am, or will be, or can be.

"Fact is, I did grow up in London. I worked in a shop, Henrick's. The Doctor blew it up, by the way, first day we met." Martha laughed and Rose hummed. "There was an invasion, and the Doctor was in the thick of it like usual, only I wouldn't let him do it alone. Good thing, too. Man could never do anything on his own. Time Lord, my arse." Martha giggled lightly at Rose's tone. "So after _I_ saved the day, he offered to let me see the universe. But I had a life, a loving mother and boyfriend, friends—y'know, normal stuff, so I rejected him at first. Then he came back, said he traveled in time, and I haven't looked back—much—since then.

"Traveling with the Doctor…changed me. I'm sure…I'm sure you can imagine how."

Martha understood. If being a companion to the Doctor was anything like being a companion to Rose…yes, she understood.

"But here's the thing, Martha. I'm you. I'm exactly like you, just a little bit less. Born in London, 1986. My mum's name is Jaqueline Tyler. My dad died when I was a baby, a hero—I watched it happen, though, and that's a story for another time. I used to work in a shop because it was the only job I could get, and I went to the pub every Friday with my mates to watch football and eat chips every chance I got. Didn't even finish my A-levels—I dropped school when I ran off with Jimmy Stone. That didn't turn out so well, though. And my room was all pink—I don't even _have_ a room anymore. I'd watch Eastenders all day on the weekends and hang out with my boyfriend after work. He was a mechanic in a little garage down the street from the council estate, and I just sort of forgot him when I met the Doctor. Now Mickey's in another universe, too, fighting for the greater good.

"I've been taking you all across time and space, Martha, and I have no idea what I'm doing. Any more questions?"

"Just one."

"What?"

"You say you worked in a shop all your adult life. How did you get to be so brilliant?"

Rose stared down at her, gobsmacked. Martha sat up to meet her eyes on an equal level.

"You think you're just an ordinary human in extraordinary circumstances. You're _not_. And don't you ever think that, or I'm never putting my life in your hands again."

Rose, robbed of speech, simply sat there in silence. Martha grinned to herself and laid back down, pleased and comfortable beyond words.

Being Miss Rose's keeper wasn't so hard, after all.

* * *

_**TBC in the semi-original-but-not-really episode, "Nature of Wolves."**_


	18. Nature of Wolves, Part I

**Sorry for the delay, finals are evil hell spawn that exist solely torture poor, innocent young writers like me.**

**Episode Nine  
****Nature of Wolves, Part I**

_Thud. Thud. Thud._

_Rapid thudding. For the moment, that was all she knew. Her heart was thudding rapidly against her chest and echoing outward to resound in her feet, echoing footsteps vibrating dissonately into the streets. Like a rabid disease, the echoing thuds spread to the feet of the woman beside beside her, the sound rising up all around them until she was overwhelmed by the feeling of mad echoes and repetitive thudding that consumed her every thought._

_Rose did not look panicked. Martha was not sure that Rose even knew how to contort her face into such an expression, but the woman's calmness was not as reassuring as it should have been._

_Martha looked over her shoulder and saw the shadowed figures looming closer. With an embarrassing squeak, she faced forward again. Rose grabbed her hand and yanked her into an alley. Martha almost lost her footing, but Rose tugged her gently along until she got her equilibrium back._

_Thudthudthudthudthud._

_It was darker in the alley, for there were fewer streetlights. Every shadow lunged at them. Martha flinched every time, jumping back like a frightened rabbit, and she would have turned around and run straight into the shadows that were chasing them if Rose hadn't so determinedly plodded onward with her hand in tow. She didn't fancy leaving her hand behind and it was rather safe where it was._

_Rose's hair seemed to be made of shadows, too. Shadows that whipped behind them like they were passing through a curtain of darkness and hadn't quite reached the other side yet. The black threads streamed behind her, banners declaring Martha's own desperate fear._

_She had to get Rose to safety. That was what mattered. The key hanging from her neck was burning._

_Thudthudthudthud._

_Her chest was starting to hurt. But her legs were flying, she was hardly in control of them anymore, she couldn't feel them, they weren't hitting the ground, she was floating, gliding along at a pace that blurred the world._

_The shadows were faster than their fastest thudding, and the alley was a dead end. Martha tugged Rose to the back door of a shop and they kicked in the door together, then ran through it. They hurdled over chairs, bounced off mattresses like they were trampolines, rolled across the tops of tables, until finally they reached the front._

_The dim lights of the shop – closed for the night, of course – flickered ominously and then went out completely. The shadows were right behind them._

_Thudthudthud._

_The storefront was glass and Martha broke through it first, shielding Rose from the worst of the shards. The glass cut into her skin, shredding it, and blood dripped down her face, her arms, her legs, but she couldn't feel any pain. She and Rose hit the ground running, but Martha's leg gave out beneath her. She stumbled onto the pavement and Rose tumbled on top of her. They rolled into a tangle of limbs and fought to free themselves, but Martha's blunder proved fatal. By the time they managed to stand, they were surrounded by the shadows._

_Thudthud._

_Martha breathed heavily, panting and sweating and bleeding and not caring because they were going to take Rose. They were going to take her, use her power, and do unspeakable things to the universe._

"_No._

_The word echoed, but went unheard. The shadows circled them, then zeroed in on Rose all at once, from every direction. Rose fell to her knees and screamed. Martha felt a broiling anger trying to overcome the petrifying fear that locked her in place._

"_No!"_

_Her scream reverberated, but only Rose looked at her. Her eyes were glowing, but the golden light was seeping out of her into the shadows, giving them shape and form and power._

"_NO!"_

_Martha threw herself in front of Rose, but the shadows went right through her like she wasn't even there. There was a bright flash of light, and when Martha looked down, Rose's blank, lifeless eyes looked up at her._

_Thud._

_Her next scream had no words._

_There were no words. Words had no meaning. They did not exist. They were ideas. Ideas existed, though._

_The shadows had ideas. And the power to make them reality, now._

_Martha felt the world tearing itself apart under her feet. The sky burst open and released a torrent of obsidian pebbles shaped like wolf heads. The thin chain around her neck constricted, strangling her, and she clawed at it with desperation, fingernails digging at her own skin and failing to loosen the chain – the key was burning so hot against her chest it was smoking. The smell of blood and burning flesh made her want to vomit, but her throat could not obey her commands._

_Streetlights twisted into metal snakes and became glittering winged serpents that blew out streams of water. The water surrounded Martha, forming the shapes of creatures she could not identify – hideous things with horns for feet and toes for eyes. Millions and millions of the things converged on her at once, filling her inside and out with water until she was breathing it and drinking it and swimming in it. She was drowning, she couldn't breathe, and goddamnit it was all her _fault_ and she couldn't fix it –_

_Thudthud._

"_What have you done, Martha?"_

_It was the Doctor, spiky brown hair sticking up everywhere, pinstriped suit bogged down with wetness; he was in the water, too, but he could breathe. There was something behind him, a glowing purple, gold, and black window into another universe; it looked like a supernova, if that was what supernovae looked like._

"_You've killed her."_

_Suddenly Martha saw that he was holding Rose in his arms – Rose, who was limp and unmoving. Rose, who had been their hope for everything._

"_The universe is being torn apart because of you."_

_His brown eyes were hard and cold, his face carved into a statuesque mask of disappointment._

"_You – have – FAILED!"_

_Thud._

"NO!" Martha shrieked. Her body convulsed in the water, which wasn't wet anymore. She breathed in desperately but couldn't get any air. Her muscles jerked mercilessly until she rolled off of something and after a moment of weightless freefalling landed with a great jolt.

She lay on her back gasping, still unable to breathe, but couldn't comprehend what she was seeing with her wide, terrified eyes.

Martha gripped something tightly in her hands and it was only when the pain registered that she realized it was the key hanging from the chain around her neck. Her other hand tore the thing that was suffocating her – a comforter – away from her nose and mouth. She breathed deep and held it, relishing in having full lungs, then exhaled unevenly. She slowly released her hold on the key and examined the palm of her hand, which was not seriously hurt, merely indented with the dull, jagged edge of the key.

Martha turned her head and slowly recognized the room. It was the room she had been occupying for two months. The painfully ordinary room with the beige carpet and white walls and brown bedding that she hated on principle.

None of it was hers. Her carpet was dark purple and her walls were wheat and her bedding was blue – there was a soft green glow and a low, constant thrum she could almost feel in her bones.

She hated this place.

Martha sat up and winced; the back of her head was throbbing. She rubbed it, sighed, and resigned herself to getting up to face the day like usual. She untangled her limbs from the bedcovers that had twisted around her. She got to her feet, still rubbing at her head, and looked at the alarm clock next to the mussed bed from which she had fallen.

Her eyes went wide. "Ah, shit," she cursed. She'd forgotten to set the damn alarm, or maybe she'd slept through it – she'd been awfully tired lately. And if she was late, so was Akura.

Still cursing, Martha lumbered down the hall, limping slightly because her right leg was asleep, and pounded loudly on the door at the end. There was a muffled thud – which caused Martha to flinch – a bit of cursing, and then silence. Martha pounded on the door again and shouted for the insufferable woman to get up, trying not to think about why it was even necessary. Surely Akura couldn't be having the mind-numbingly terrifying nightmares that Martha suffered almost every night.

When again Martha received no response, she barged into the room, banging the door on the wall behind it on purpose, and marched over to the window. She drew open the dusky pink curtains, watching the watery sunlight stream onto the bed in satisfaction.

Akura whimpered and buried her face in the dark blue comforter on her tiny bed.

Martha knelt beside her and yelled right in her ear, "GOOD MORNING!"

Akura whacked Martha in the face with a pillow – or tried to, only Martha was prepared and caught the pillow, then whacked Akura right back.

Akura fell back into bed with a muffled grunt and muttered something that sounded suspiciously like, "Fuck off."

Martha rolled her eyes and ripped back Akura's covers, taking them into the hall with her and depositing the lot there where Akura would have to come out and get them.

"It's Sunday," Akura groaned with a crackly voice that made Martha cringe.

"Don't be stupid," said Martha, exasperated. "You slept through history. Now get your arse up. There's no time for breakfast."

Reluctantly, Akura sat up and blinked blearily at Martha before yawning and rubbing her eyes. Martha would have thought it was cute if not for the fact that she had just seen how horribly bloodshot those eyes were. She bit her tongue against a reproving remark – the woman's personal life really shouldn't be much of her business, since she was only really responsible for hiding her. Martha had learned that the hard way shortly after their arrival.

Pushing that memory to the back of her mind, Martha instructed Akura to hurry up so they could leave and salvage the rest of the day.

They really had completely different schedules, sharing no classes and only having one class with times that intersected. Martha had already completely missed hers and the next one wouldn't be until after lunch in an hour and a half, but Akura was going to be late to astronomy. Martha waited until she heard Akura's shower start before rushing to freshen up herself.

Akura grabbed a small bag of crisps on their way out and Martha noticed that her eyes were only marginally clearer – eyes that were quickly covered with reflective sunglasses even though it was slightly overcast today. Martha refrained from saying anything about it and concentrated on starting the ancient and temperamental Toyota truck that she and Akura shared. It finally started after a fashion and a bit of cursing the hunk of junk, and Martha steered them to Brighton University.

Akura had a thoughtful look on her face and Martha suspected she was trying to figure out how to say something; Martha waited patiently.

"Have you ever had a dream," she started, "that felt so real you felt like you were still dreaming when you woke up?"

Martha shuddered.

"No," she lied.

"I've been having weird dreams like that lately."

Martha didn't think she would ever get used to the accent, even after two months of hearing it. But it did make it easier to remember that this was Akura Kraft – not Rose Tyler. Akura was very much a modern American human of the latter half of the twenty-first century.

"Yeah? Like what?"

Akura shrugged. Martha came to a stoplight and looked at her. She felt a pang in her heart for the woman who used to wear that face, who used to look out of those hazel eyes with such strength, determination and stubbornness—now, she seemed to be hiding a fragile underbelly under blustering bravado and teenage superiority. She was sad, though, always. Broken in some ways, Martha thought, that wouldn't be fixed until Martha opened the damn watch.

"Trippy shit," said Akura. "Like, I have these weird _powers_, you know what I mean? Like Superman, only better. I can make stuff and blow shit up with a wave of my hands and then travel the stars in this stupid little blue box—like magic or something. You study brains, what do you think it means?"

Martha used the pretense of looking off to the left in order to hide her rolling eyes, bringing to mind, not for the first time, the fact that driving on the left-hand side of the truck was freakin' awkward for her. Also not for the first time, she thoroughly cursed the TARDIS—in her thoughts, of course, lest Akura think she was certifiable. Akura's made-up life had not been the most pleasant or flexible one, and Martha's part in it was…well, there wasn't really a word for what had become of their relationship. A small part of it was just that their personalities truly clashed; Martha knew exactly what she wanted to study, and was organized and methodical about how she did that studying. Akura had no idea what she was doing; she was just drifting, and it seemed that Martha was usually too far away to keep her afloat.

"I don't study dreams," said Martha, "and I don't want to."

Akura frowned.

"Whatever," she snapped, apparently peeved. She was angry most of the time, these days, to the point of hostility. "I bet you don't even _have_ dreams."

_No_, agreed Martha mentally. _I have nightmares._

**ΘΣ … ΘΣ … ΘΣ**

Martha spent the rest of her morning in the library working furiously on the semester paper she had been assigned the first day of NEUR 891A, which was a straightforward Brain and Behavior course offered to medical students in their first year. While Martha chafed at being looked at like she had no idea what she was doing even though she was in reality an intern at Royal Hope, she enjoyed the opportunity to study things that she hadn't before. She was joined half an hour through her work by shy Kevin, who was too timid to ask questions of the teachers but was encouraged by Martha's natural friendliness. She rolled her eyes and set about helping him through his own paper whilst working on her own.

Taking a break to get something to eat at one of the campus cafés, Martha mused about how easy it was to fall back into the dull college routine. It was as though she had never even left. It was almost depressing to think about it. It was a meaningless life, yet it was so easy to live. She felt a pang of longing for the stars. Hard as it was to live with Rose Tyler at times, there was nowhere else she would rather be.

She grabbed a salad and was about to take a seat with a couple of classmates she recognized when she saw Melissa Alexander. The blonde had drooping puppy-dog eyes, asymmetrical cheekbones, pointy chin, and a slight case of acne, but she also had such an energetic and _noticeable_ personality that Martha hardly ever took note of what she looked like. However, the two of them didn't exactly click. Melissa was in the same crowd that Akura usually hung with. Along with Vance Bradley, Ruby Sawyer, Evelyn Harding, Kitty Orman, and Stanley Flynn, they composed a rather motley group of students, none of whom Martha managed to befriend as closely as Akura had. They were decent enough, Martha supposed, but as long as they weren't dangerous they weren't any of Martha's business.

Nodding a curt farewell to Kevin and waving at her classmates as she passed them, Martha made a beeline for Melissa, who was sitting alone by a window. That she was sitting alone should have been Martha's first clue that something was wrong. She looked around the café for Akura as she sat down, but didn't see the brunette anywhere.

"Martha!" Melissa greeted loudly with a horrible imitation of a London accent. "How lovely to see you!" Martha forced a smile. She did like Melissa, but sometimes she could be a bit…much. Dropping the accent, Melissa whispered conspiratorially, "So how come Akura wasn't in class this time?"

Martha stared uncomprehendingly. She knew Akura's schedule by heart, of course. She also knew that Akura usually had lunch with Melissa right after class—astronomy. But why would Akura have missed astronomy? She slept through history, but Martha got her to the next class only a little late.

"History?"

"No, astronomy. But anyway, she is definitely my fucking hero, you know. I so want to know who she pays to get away with it all."

"With what?"

"Turning in all her work and getting perfect grades, that's what. Are you the one that helps her? It would sure explain a lot."

Martha took a slow bite of her salad. It tasted like ash.

"No," her voice was hollow after she choked it down. "It's not me. Does Akura skip class often?"

Martha didn't always eat lunch in the places Melissa and Akura did, so she couldn't say that she knew for certain that she knew where Akura was at all times. It seemed stalkerish to assume that she needed to be aware of every little thing in Akura's life, but it was disturbing to think that she was off doing things that Martha didn't know about.

Meanwhile, Melissa was laughing. The sound made Martha's ears feel like they were being stabbed by needles.

"Akura almost _never_ comes to class. Where have you been?"

Martha was floored. That was a damn good question. Where _had_ she been, to miss this? She toyed with her food; she'd lost her appetite.

"Where does she go?"

Melissa shrugged. "Hell if I know. Ever since those boys started hanging out with us, she's been spending less time with me."

Melissa was trying to hide how bothered she was by that, but Martha was not a fool.

"Who are these boys?"

Melissa fidgeted uncomfortably. Martha's sharp eyes saw her rubbing her wrist with a tight grip; when Melissa's hand went back to her food, Martha could see fading marks that looked like bruises. Martha only got to see them for less than a second before Melissa shoved her arm on her lap under the table and out of sight, causing Martha to question whether she had seen anything at all.

"I don't know them that well. Van does, he's the one that introduced them to us a week ago. Anyways, Akura didn't really like them too much at first until a couple nights ago – especially last night."

"Last night?"

"Yeah, at the party she was all over this one guy. What was his name again? It was something weird, like Argo or something like that. I used to watch a show that had a horse named Argo in it. That boy is about as fun to be around as an ass, though. I would have thought she'd tell you all about him, since you live together."

Melissa was acting jealous, and was fast-talking and somewhat random; Martha was growing increasingly uncomfortable.

"We haven't been…close…for a while."

Melissa made a noise of understanding and Martha wanted to slap her.

"So anyways, yeah, Akura is _amazing_ for ditching and _still_ passing everything! Can you believe it? Are you sure you don't know how she does it?"

Martha gave her look of faint disgust and stood to leave.

"No, 'fraid not. Look, it was good talking with you, but I have to go now, all right?"

Melissa beamed widely.

"Hey, join me anytime you feel like. A friend of Akura's is a friend of mine, if you know what mean." She gave Martha an exaggerated wink and broke into giggles. Martha thought back on her term paper and wondered if maybe Melissa would make a good test subject. Exactly how close were Akura and Melissa anyway?

"Later," she muttered with only a small degree of politeness. She threw out her uneaten salad on the way out of the café.

**ΘΣ … ΘΣ … ΘΣ**

Martha sent a text to Akura before her afternoon class started, and waited maybe twenty minutes before accepting silence. She had no time to try anything else, however, and a couple hours later she was at Starbucks catering to the occasional cranky customer, not that there were many at this time of day. Akura was supposed to be at work as well, at a shop in a mall that sold things at which Martha would have cringed before she started traveling across the universe to see much more dangerous, and stranger, and scandalous things. Martha sent her a text anyway, simply asking if she was all right, but again received no reply. She considered leaving work early, but she would probably lose the job if she did, and although she certainly didn't _need_ to work—nor did Akura, really—it was nice to have something to occupy herself with for a few hours.

At the end of her shift, she was starting to worry. It was dark out, nearing ten o'clock, and Akura was supposed to come home at eleven. Martha made a half-hearted attempt at a very late dinner until she saw the answering machine in the kitchen blinking ominously red.

"_You have one new message,_" announced the computerized voice when Martha pressed the appropriate button. "_Message one:_ _"Hi, this is Dana Whittaker from _The Burning Sun _trying to contact Akura Kraft regarding her absence from work this afternoon. Unless the absence is cleared with her supervisor by her next shift, Ms. Kraft will receive an official warning from management. Since this will be her fifth warning, it is likely that Ms. Kraft will lose her position unless she takes immediate action. Please contact Ike Norman at 719-222-0905._"

Martha sat on the couch in the common living area, staring blankly into the gloom. Akura wasn't answering any of her calls; each one went straight to voicemail, and Martha must have called a dozen times. Her nerves were tingling, electrified, and she wished like hell she knew what to do.

Close to midnight, Martha managed to convince herself that Akura was merely out with friends, had lost track of time, didn't have her phone, was having a blast, and would come home early in the morning drunk but alive. It was better to imagine that than to contemplate the many ways in which she may have failed Rose.

She was itching to move. Although she hadn't eaten much all day, she was full of energy that was trying to crawl down her spine and into her legs and she didn't realize until she was halfway out the door that she was craving the thrill of running for her life. Running was much better than just sitting there alone, waiting.

It was mid-November, so it was close to freezing outside, but luckily the town, Lupus Nocens, had escaped the threat of snow so far. Martha slipped on a jacket, some sweatpants and jogging shoes, grabbed her iPod, and took off.

The first blast of crisp air on her warm skin felt envigorating. She breathed deeply through her nose and relished in the burn of coldness that made its way all the way up her nostrils into her brain and filling her lungs.

She didn't have a specific destination in mind, losing herself to the music and the feel of every footstep. She should have known better, of course; soon she found herself on a very familiar street heading out of town. She shuddered at the memory of her dream from last night, but the details were fuzzier now and she was able to ignore them.

Martha came to a slow halt in a back alley that was located several blocks from the flat. Before her was an old, rusty shed that looked like it hadn't been used since Daleks tried to conquer Manhattan. It felt like that long since she had been there.

The TARDIS was warm but strangely silent and dark. A faint green glow emanated from the console. Martha rounded the time rotor slowly, letting her fingers trail lightly over knobs and levers and – was that a bicycle pump?

"Hello." She paused. "I'm talking to a machine."

It wasn't just a machine, not really, not that Martha could confirm that for certain, but she was almost positive that Rose communicated with the ship sometimes.

It was so…quiet in here. She didn't like it. It wasn't normal.

Whatever normal was supposed to be, that was. Martha had stopped caring about 'normal' a long time ago, but time travel was routine in its own way. Wake up, have breakfast on a helipad that literally floated above an alien ocean with sea creatures rearing up from below to serve them food. Hop back into the TARDIS, travel to ancient Egypt, anger the local pharaoh, disprove their religion, save the day from giant scarabs, and hop back in the TARDIS to enjoy a quiet meal before heading to bed. Wake up the next morning, have breakfast with a clan of bright pink Ewok-looking things…. She'd gotten used to it.

But this, living an ordinary life—she had quite forgotten how it was done. It was hard to cope with it.

And it was all because of _them_.

"_Look out!"_

_Martha dove for the floor and a bolt went flying over her head, unleashing a flurry of sparks from the console. She looked over. Rose's eyes were wide, gleaming, frustrated._

_Behind them, _they_ were looming closer. Before the door shut, another blast came rushing at Rose, who could only twist partly out of the way. Without thinking about it or giving Rose time to try to dodge, Martha tugged sharply at Rose's ankles, bringing her straight to the ground and – barely – to safety. Rose leapt back up immediately, ready and rearing to spur the TARDIS into action. Before starting on that, she spared a moment to offer Martha a hand up and breathe, "Thanks for that."_

She sighed and faced the console's screen, biting back vicious tears that meant nothing in this slow, normal, boring world. Above, the Chameleon Arch's constant presence taunted her.

"_They're following us! They'll follow us no matter where we go, Martha, all across the universe, they'll find us, and they won't stop until they do. And then they… Do you trust me?"_

"_Of course I do!"_

"_Good. 'Cause it all depends on you, Martha."_

_Her eyes were wide and serious, and Martha knew that something was about to change. Her stomach roiled unpleasantly, dreading whatever it was._

_Rose reached into her jacket, sticking her arm down much further than it should have been able to go, in Martha's professional opinion. She finally grasped an object and held it out for Martha's inspection. At first, Martha was too befuddled to register anything other than that it was a pocketwatch. Then she observed that it was quite dull, and she got a half-frightening, half-comforting sense that it was old—very, very old. The front was engraved with the circles and gear-like symbols she had occasionally seen on the screen when Rose wasn't reading from it. She wondered what it meant._

"_This watch," said Rose, "is me."_

_Martha gingerly took the pocketwatch from Rose and noted that Rose's fingers were almost abnormally warm when she brushed against them._

_She stared at the watch, trying to see the resemblance between it and the brunette. She even squinted._

"_Riiight, okay, gotcha. …No, hold on! Completely lost!"_

"_Those things are hunters, Martha, and they're looking for power. They can sniff out anyone, and me, well…" Rose looked sheepish._

"_You've got power," observed Martha dryly._

"_They can track me down through all of time and space, drain my life force and use it to directly connect to the Vortex, which would cause chaos like you can't even imagine. They could destroy the universe, or worse."_

_Martha had to laugh even though it wasn't funny. It was just like them to get into this kind of situation. End of the universe as they knew it, and she didn't feel so fine. _

"_And the good news is?"_

"_They haven't seen me, and they're starving. We hide, wait for them to die, problem solved."_

_It couldn't be that easy._

"_But…you said they can track us down!"_

_Rose shook her head. "I said they can track _me_. I've got to become someone else."_

_She turned, and a strange device that resembled a headset was lowered into her reach._

"_What does that do?"_

_Rose grimaced._

"_When I heard about all this__—_I mean, the Chamelon Arch, I thought it was crazy that I might have to use it one day. No, not crazy, impossible. Because it rewrites my DNA, changing every cell in my body—to a human. It wouldn't even be possible right now if my DNA were still in flux, but luckily it's stabilized now."

_She faced Martha again and gently took the pocketwatch from her. Their eyes met. Martha was shaking her head (in disbelief? denial?) and didn't even realize it._

_Rose tore her gaze away and fixed the watch to a part of the headset that looked made for it. Rose was looking at the time rotor when she spoke next._

"_The TARDIS will take care of you, Martha. She'll invent a whole new life story for me, because I won't remember anything; I'll be a blank slate. But she can't do that for you, so make sure I see you straight away. I'll know you're important, and I'll keep you close. At least, I hope so."_

"_But…wait! If that thing rewrites every single cell—isn't it going to hurt?"_

_Rose finally turned to look at her again. She was smirking._

"_Thank you for caring, Martha, but believe me, whatever it feels like, I've felt things a million times worse."_

_Nonetheless, a feeling of foreboding overcame Martha as Rose placed the device over her head._

"_Oh, and I've left further instructions on the TARDIS. Just flip the five switches to the right of the console straight up and you'll hear them."_

_Martha bit her lip._

"_What if I can't do this, Rose?"_

_Rose smiled at her._

"_I believe in you, Martha."_

_She activated the device._

_Instantly, Rose's spine went rigid, then arched back. Her eyes squeezed shut and she began to convulse, but the Chameleon Arch kept her from falling. Her mouth opened and at first no sound escaped, but then her lips clamped shut and a Martha heard her release a muffled scream, like Rose was trying so hard not to express whatever she was feeling._

_Martha cringed in horror, but somehow she couldn't look away. Rose jerked like a fish at the end of a line, hands clutching the Arch, mouth determinedly kept shut but screaming anyway, a keening wail that ripped right through Martha's chest._

Sniffing, Martha wiped an errant tear from her cheek and tried to forget the twisted look of anguish that had marred Rose's beautiful face that day.

Most horrifying of all was Rose's solemn declaration that whatever it felt like—and Martha had seen what it must have felt like—she had gone through something a million times worse.

Martha couldn't even imagine it, and her heart clenched painfully at the glancing thought of such a thing. What had Rose ever done to deserve that? It wasn't…fair.

Martha chuckled ruefully to herself. What was?

Her hand swiped across the switches to the right of the console, flicking them so they were pointed toward the time rotor. In seconds, the smile she hadn't realized she had missed so fervently appeared gleaming at Martha.

"_Martha, before I change, before I forget everything, there are some things that you need to know..._"

She had already listened to the message a couple dozen times since the TARDIS had landed in Colorado 2069, but honestly…she just needed to hear _Rose_. She needed to forget about Akura Kraft for a moment and remember who used to wear her face.

What was weird, Martha had noticed, was that in the message, Rose seemed to be wearing exactly the same clothes she had when they had gone to Old New York. Not that that was saying much, since Rose almost always wore that damn jacket, but it was still weird that she wore the same shirt and jeans and even earring studs. How could Rose have possibly known about this that far in advance, or at all? How could she have known to create a message like this for Martha?

"_The Family will do everything to get to me. Keep an eye out, Martha. Even for people you think you know__—_they possess people, killing them inside and using their bodies to get to their food, to lure them in by making you trust them. Don't. If you can, keep me from getting too close to anyone, just in case."

Martha sniffed again.

Failure number one.

"_Second, make sure we don't attract a lot of attention. No getting involved in big historical events, no becoming famous. Lay low for the few months it'll take the Family to die._"

Success, Martha thought. Average, nondescript first-year college students were not, in general, noteworthy in history.

"_Also, make sure I don't abandon you, not for any reason. Stay as close to me as you can and keep an eye on me. Don't seem too controlling, human me won't like that. Just don't let me hurt anyone or anything – you never know what could happen. Otherwise, let human me be whoever she thinks she wants to be._"

Was that a failure or a success? Martha wondered. To the letter, possibly a success. Didn't feel like it, though. So, probably a failure then.

"_Don't worry about the TARDIS. She'll land somewhere discreet and start running off emergency power so the Family won't find it. Just leave her wherever she lands. Let her hide._

"_If the worst happens and they do find us, open the watch. Ridiculous as it sounds, everything I am is safe in that thing. Like a horcrux._"

Martha managed a small laugh.

"_So make sure it's in a good place. Human me won't even notice it; the TARDIS put a perception filter around it, which means that I'll just think it's an ordinary watch, an odd little knick-knack that doesn't even mean anything._"

Martha huffed impatiently and skipped ahead about thirty seconds in the message. She didn't want to think about what she should have done differently in the last two months. She didn't want to think about how disappointed Rose would be. She didn't want to think about what was probably her greatest failure among the things Rose had asked her to do. She wanted to pretend, at least for a little while, that everything was all right, and to do that she couldn't listen to the rest of the message.

"_And…thank you, Martha. For everything._"

On screen, Rose smiled, and her image froze. Martha stared at her for a moment until she felt something wet on her cheeks. Rubbing the unexpected—and unwelcome—tears from her face, she turned off the screen and patted the console.

"She'll be back soon," said Martha. She managed not to feel ridiculous doing it, and could have sworn she felt something under her fingers, but it was fleeting and soon after she doubted it was there at all.

Heaving one last sigh and casting one last glare at the Chameleon Arch, Martha reluctantly left the TARDIS.

And afterwards nearly ran smack into someone in the doorway of the rusty old shed.

Martha gasped in surprise. Her heart was trying to escape her chest, so she held a hand there to hold it in. She took a few quick breaths, trying to calm down, but it didn't work very well.

It was a tall, serious-looking man with almost no hair. He stood just outside the shed, so Martha was able to step all the way out to see him better. He had big ears and a big nose, and piercing blue eyes that seemed to shoot straight through her soul and keep on going. He wore a dark jumper under an ancient leather jacket, plain black trousers and Doc Martens. He had a strong, slim build that was silhouetted by the moonlight and distant streetlights.

Swallowing her heart before it jumped clear from her throat, Martha shakily pulled her wallet from her sweatpants and handed it over with trembling fingers.

"That's all I've got," she managed to say. "Just take it and leave, all right?"

All the things she had seen in the universe, this was the first time she'd been mugged.

The man took the wallet but looked behind Martha at the closed doors of the TARDIS. She felt a flash of panic. He hadn't seen inside it, had he? She shivered in the cold.

"What's that, then?"

He had a Northern London accent, which was curious in the States but Martha wasn't curious enough to ask—not when she just wanted him _gone_.

"It's a shed."

The man's eyebrows jumped up, wrinkles appearing on his expansive forehead.

"In a shed? A shed inside a shed. First I've ever seen of that."

Martha chuckled nervously.

"You'd be surprised what you can find when you're not looking for it. Or were you?"

The man ignored her and opened the wallet in his hand. His eyes darkened; his expression became stormy.

"What, not enough for you? I told you, I haven't got anything else."

"This is psychic paper."

Martha's eyes went wide. She must have grabbed the wrong wallet when she left the flat, dammit. But how did this man know what it was? He wasn't really a mugger, was he? Oh, bugger it all.

"How did you get this?" he demanded.

Martha huffed helplessly and nudged him away from the door so she could shut it properly. She put her back up against it and crossed her arms for good measure.

"I found it," she said, improvising, "on the ground, in there," she jerked a thumb behind her at the shed. "Didn't know what it was, but thanks for telling me. What does it do?"

Admittedly, improvising was more Rose's strength than Martha's.

"How could _you_ possibly have psychic paper?" The man seemed to ignore everything she'd said. "You're just a local!" He peered at her shrewdly. "Or are you?"

"Look, I had no idea what that thing was when I found it. How did _you_ know what it was? Are you an expert on blank pieces of paper?"

"You must not belong in this time period," muttered the man, gesturing at the shed behind her—at the TARDIS. "It's the only explanation that makes sense."

"How do you know about that?" Martha demanded.

He appeared utterly bewildered.

"Why wouldn't I?"

Martha was starting to wonder if they were even speaking in the same conversation.

"I don't even know who you are! Lurking about in the street like that, I thought I was being mugged!"

"Well, you weren't, were you? And look here, if you've stolen a key to my TARDIS—"

Martha's eyes bugged out.

"_Your_ TARDIS!" she repeated incredulously. "Not even! Look here, I earned my key fair and square," she dug out the chain and held it up for him to see. His hand reached out and tried to snatch it; Martha jerked it away, then slapped him hard across the face. To her satisfaction, he recoiled, stunned. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

"Getting my key back, you petty thief!"

"WHAT?" Martha was getting sick of this, fast. "How dare you! I bet I've got more right to the ship than you do, looking like some random bum in a jacket that hasn't seen light since World War Two!"

"You _stupid_ apes! Why can't a blue box ever just be a blue box?"

"Ape?" Martha gasped, enraged. "You're one to talk, with ears like that! Gone missing from the latest production of _Dumbo_, have you?"

They continued to shout at each other for a few minutes, getting up in each other's faces, too close for comfort, really, but Martha was too far gone to care. They screamed nonsensical insults that Martha couldn't really even hear because they were yelling too loudly, talking over each other, trying to outdo the other. She wasn't really thinking straight, blinded with fury that this, this…_man_ could possibly think that he, and not Rose, could stake a claim on the TARDIS. What a bastard! How dare he think that Martha had stolen a key to get onto the ship, like some common criminal?

Perhaps it was the stress of the last two months catching up to her. Perhaps she missed Rose, and hated that she couldn't open the watch yet, and hated that this man, whoever he was, seemed to be rubbing that fact, and all of her recent failures, which she was steadfastly _not_ thinking about, in her face—and laughing about it. Whatever the case, her blood was boiling and calling out for _his_.

Until someone interrupted them like a bucket of ice-cold water.

"OI! Button it, both of you!"

Martha's jaw dropped in shock and disbelief, effectively silencing her. The man ducked his head, looking chagrined. Martha felt utterly floored—like she was literally about to allow gravity to grab hold of her and throw her to the ground, she was so surprised.

Rose—_bottle-blonde_ Rose—strutted right up in the man's personal space, shoving herself in the tiny space between him and Martha. Martha backed up until she was pressed against the door of the shed, which was only a scant few inches behind her. Rose poked the man hard in the chest while Martha looked on, bemused. She was vaguely aware that Rose felt warm, with her back nearly touching Martha's chest.

"What the hell are you doing, anyway?" She jabbed him with her finger and he hunched like a dog being scolded. "Pickin' fights with the locals an' we haven't even been here ten minutes!"

Then she turned to Martha, who once again tried to back up but was trapped against the door of the shed and pinned in place that powerful gaze. Martha's vision blurred with tears.

She was so…so…_Rose_. She was real, even the smell of her, and the determined, stubborn look in her eyes, and the fearless stance, and the bold set of her shoulders and angry set of her jaw…it was all _her_, every inch of her, right down to how abnormally warm her body heat felt even with some distance—or maybe that was the cold—

"Sorry 'bout him," Rose was saying. "Honestly, can't take him anywhere anymore, he's so rude!" She threw a glare over her shoulder at him for emphasis. "Really, I hope he didn't bother you…you know, _too_ much."

Martha forgot how to speak English, so she just shook her head. Part of her wanted to wrap her arms around Rose and refuse to ever let go.

"Rose," the man tried to explain, holding up the wallet, "really, I can explain all this. She had–"

"I don't care if she was hiding the spawn of the Mighty Jagrafess of the Holy Hadrojassic Maxarodenfoe in her jacket, you were being rude!"

The man opened his mouth again, but Rose gave him such a withering glare he actually took a step back and swallowed audibly. Rose turned to Martha, expression softening, and apologized again before turning to leave.

Spellbound, Martha and the strange man both stared after her. A few steps later, Rose turned around and started walking backwards.

She called, "Doctor! Are you coming or what?"

Meekly, the man returned the psychic paper to Martha and followed Rose out of the alley with his head hanging. Numb, Martha took back the wallet and stared after them.

When they were almost out of sight, Martha forcibly shook herself from her stupor and ran towards them. She stopped at the end of the alley and watched them walk down the street and enter a family-owned restaurant, _Bad Wolf Corner_. It was Akura's favorite—she swore up and down and on the grave of Van's mother (since it was too painful to mention her own) that they had the best fries anywhere.

Martha stood there for several minutes, numb with shock and the cold, until she was quite sure that she must have imagined the whole thing. The stress of that damn Family was getting to her head, that was what happened.

Dazed, she put in her ear plugs and jogged slowly back to her temporary home.


	19. Nature of Wolves, Part II

**ATTN: As a devout writer, I cannot condone giving anything away before it happens, but as a human being I feel that I should give my readers fair warning that in this chapter, 1) there are mentions of certain things that could be triggering to others, 2) I'm not an expert on those certain things, I have no personal experience about that stuff, anyone I know who does have personal experience isn't anyone I can talk to in order to paint a clearer picture just for a fanfic—so bear with me if I sound like a naïve idiot at any point and 3) flame me if you want for doing it at all, but honestly the story writes itself, so clearly it's _supposed_ to happen this way even if there doesn't seem to be much point to it other than upsetting people (which is fun in its own way).**

**Also, before you get started, I'd like to remind people of my notes regarding Rose's avoidant personality. Think before flaming.**

* * *

**Episode Nine  
****Nature of Wolves, Part II**

Martha barely slept that night. She was half afraid to even lie down, certain that Rose—no, _Akura_—would call her at any moment. The other half of her was terrified of what she'd see when she closed her eyes, and rightly so. Sleeping off and on for about four hours, Martha caught horrifying glimpses of everything that plagued her subconscious.

The Doctor, the man that could apparently change faces like masks at a ball, one minute Dumbo and one minute in a suit, screaming at her – nonsensical words that blended and blurred together like a bad recording but all at once meant something else, an anger, a disappointment, a frothing rage that Martha had failed at the one thing she was expected to do right: protect Rose.

Then Rose, so innocent and utterly ignorant of what her future would hold, blissfully holding the Doctor's hand and dragging him to an all-night diner to get a midnight snack consisting of greasy, salty chips. Chastising him for being rude. Boldly asserting herself where normally she'd have no right to be, but doing it anyway, and so successfully it felt she had been there all along.

And she had been. How could she have not told Martha that they had already met once before? How could Rose have tried inconsistently to make Martha leave when she knew from the start that Martha wouldn't, or couldn't? It was probable, Martha thought, that Rose had simply forgotten the incident. It hadn't been life-threatening, it hadn't lasted long, and it was presumably a long time ago for Rose, so there was no reason to remember.

But the whole situation made her uneasy. She half expected the Family to find them just because Past-Rose and Past-Doctor had been in the same town as them. Why did the TARDIS take them to a place where Rose had once frequented? If the time machine was half as sentient as it seemed, it had to have known the risk it was taking, bringing them here of all places.

And then there was Bad Wolf. She had been seeing the words everywhere for some time now, although she hadn't mentioned it to Rose, who had seemed to either not notice or not care. Even on the day she had first met Rose—the day she'd _thought_ Rose had first met her—Swales, the other medical student, had likened their instructor to the Big Bad Wolf. Then in London 1599, when Rose was playing around in the prop room (not that she'd ever admit that she was playing around, of course), Shakespeare had told Martha that Rose resembled a fierce, overprotective wolf.

The words sprung up far more frequently after that. Once Martha sat down and took the time to remember each instance, the more uneasy she became.

The name of the shuttle that had taken them from Omega XVI's moon to the planet had been called "BW22." After a rebel had deliberately crashed the shuttle into the Wastelands, Martha and another soldier, Shani, had traveled to the nearest town, Kendle, where they had been taken to a hospital – Bad Wolf Hospital. Back on Earth, the old woman who had been involved with Lazarus's dangerous attempt to become immortal had been introduced as Lady Wolf. In New New York, the beautiful hymn that the survivors of the under-city's isolation had sung to celebrate their freedom had mentioned a powerful wolf that had come to save the day.

In "old" New York, she had heard the words from Rose herself (which made it far more disturbing than any of the other times Martha had seen or heard them) when the Daleks had demanded to know what she was. Then she'd seen them engraved into the base of the Statue of Liberty by a crude hand like someone's carving of initials of young love, though she'd been too tired at the time to be anything but mildly irritated about seeing it. Even more frightening was when Rose was wracked with that powerful fever and muttering deliriously; Martha had thought at first that the words were nonsense, but she'd written down some of the phrases and later looked them up to find that they nearly all translated into variations of the same thing: Bad Wolf. Even more recently, on the ship that had nearly burned them both alive, Riley had answered a question on the password-sealed doors that had asked something about a breed of wolf on a planet Martha had never of before.

Now that Rose was human, the damn words haunted her _everywhere_. Akur_o_ was Japanese for "evil wolf." Lupus Nocens was the name of the small city in which the TARDIS had landed. _Bad Wolf Corner_ was Akura's favorite place to eat out—apparently a remnant from Rose, who'd evidently liked to eat there as well. First day of classes, there had been graffiti on the front of the school; no words, just the outline of a wolf howling at the moon. Which sort of made sense, since the mascot of the school was a wolf. There was also a local radio station called "The Howling," and a club ten minutes from their apartment complex called _Wolf Den_.

No matter what it meant, Martha had long since gotten tired of seeing the words scattered all over the place. It was like someone had been trying to tell her something all along, and now they were screaming it, and Martha had no idea what that something was. It felt like a warning, and with everything else that was happening, it just served to make Martha even more paranoid and sleepless. After all, if it _was_ a warning, then she needed to open the watch. But how could she justify opening the watch so early to Rose? Because a couple of words had spooked her?

She missed Rose. Rose would know what to do. Which was sort of why Martha was in this position in the first place, she thought.

All of these ruminations, which grated on her mind like rusty razor blades, were why Martha found herself getting up far earlier than normal and going back to the TARDIS one last time before heading to school. She still hadn't heard from Akura.

The TARDIS succeeded in making her feel even more depressed, just as it had the night before, but this time there was no sign of the big-eared Doctor or his companion to shock the sadness out of her. She still had an hour and a half, so she drew her coat close around her, sat on the floor against a railing, and murmured lowly to the time machine. The TARDIS never responded, but Martha felt vaguely comforted in the presence of something that had become so familiar to her.

"Why _here_ of all places?" she implored softly at one point. "Don't you see all the neon warning signs flashing? Wolf this, wolf that. Everywhere. Doesn't it _mean_ something?"

The gloom of the TARDIS seemed to peer at her with an ancient sort of knowledge she could never understand. She shifted with discomfort; it was cold, and her butt was growing numb.

"I _know_ you're not just a machine. You can't be. Rose said you taught her how to fly you. How is that even possible? But if you're alive, how could you take her here when she's at her most vulnerable? Don't you realize what could happen? I can't protect her, you know."

Martha jumped to her feet when she felt the grating underneath her vibrate so gently, she would have missed it if the air hadn't been so silent and still. She held her breath, waiting for something to happen, but when nothing did, she slowly released her breath and laid a palm on the console.

"The only thing I can think is that you did it on purpose."

She gasped. There was another thrum, even more faint than before, under her fingers. She would have been elated if not for the implication that the ship had just confirmed her suspicions.

"But then you _know_ the Family will find us here. Soon, if they connect the Doctor and Rose to me and Akura."

Another vibration, this one somehow more fierce but just as faint as the last one, and Martha got the impression that the TARDIS _wanted_ the Family to come.

"Why? When it would be so much easier to hide and wait it out, like Rose planned?"

This time there was no response, and Martha had to get to the college for her first lesson. She sighed, patted the console twice, and left.

**ΘΣ … ΘΣ … ΘΣ**

She was explaining a fairly complicated concept to Kevin when her cell phone rang loudly in the hushed library. She froze for a second, then scrambled to gather all of her things, apologizing quickly and insincerely to both Kevin and the library technician that glared at her, and rushed from the building as fast as her feet would take her.

She opened her phone and heaved an enormous sigh of relief when she saw the Caller ID.

"Akura, _finally_, I've been calling–"

"_I know._" Martha flinched. Akura's voice was gravelly and she sounded like she'd been crying. "_I'm sorry. Can you come get me?_"

Martha had become accustomed to Akura well enough to know that she was scared and more vulnerable than ever—and doing her damnedest to hide it. Therefore, Martha didn't even think about the classes she would no doubt have to miss for the rest of the day; it wasn't like they mattered, anyway.

"Where are you?"

"_Argen's place. I'll text you the address._"

And she hung up. Martha stared at her phone with some disbelief until it vibrated. She sprinted like lightning to her car.

**ΘΣ … ΘΣ … ΘΣ**

Argen, whoever that was (what a weird name), lived in an apartment a dozen miles south of the campus. Martha knew nothing about the area, but at first glance it appeared harmless enough. There was a high school a couple blocks away from the building and one of the city's two hospitals was just around the corner. It certainly wasn't a place Martha would ever want to live, there was just too much noise at pretty much all hours of the day, but it was far from the urine-stained, junkie-infested rat hole in which she had half feared she would find Akura.

Parking barely legally on the curb outside the apartment building, Martha rushed up two flights of stairs and stopped dead in front of 213B. Should she knock? She scoffed at herself and promptly barged inside; the door was unlocked.

The flat was a mess and smelled strongly of sex and alcohol. In the living room there were several open boxes of half-eaten pizzas spread haphazardly on the coffee table and two sofas. The curtains were dark but did not completely block out sunlight, illuminating discarded empty and half-empty bottles and cheesy red plastic cups carelessly strewn about the room. Other detritus littered the flat, and Martha felt her feeling of dread increase with everything she saw. It didn't help that the apartment wasn't remotely empty; a young half-naked couple lay sprawled together on the recliner near the TV, a man dressed like a bum was passed out cold on the floor, and another couple, thankfully fully clothed, was stretched out on the sofa nearest the door. No one so much as twitched when Martha came in; they were all out like a light.

Martha shook her head in disbelief and strode quickly through the living room into the short, dark hallway that presumably led to bedrooms. Half terrified of what she'd find back there, Martha softly called out Akura's name. When Akura responded, Martha traced the voice to the room at the farthest end of the hall, the master bedroom.

In comparison to the living room, the bedroom was practically spotless. But the bed covers were in disarray and clothes lay tossed about on the floor. The lighting was very dim and Martha had to pause for second to allow her eyes to adjust before she finally figured out where Akura was.

The dark-haired woman was on the side of the bed opposite the door, sitting on the floor and leaning against the wall with her eyes closed. When she heard Martha come in, she opened her eyes but otherwise didn't move.

Martha had a million questions she wasn't sure how to ask, so she kept silent. She crouched beside Akura, who was wearing her clothes from the day before. Akura was frighteningly still as Martha moved closer, though a muscle in her jaw twitched.

"Are you ready to go?"

Akura looked for a moment as if she wanted to laugh. She glanced briefly at Martha, who examined her carefully. There were dark circles under her puffy, mascara-streaked eyes, the irises of which were surprisingly large, given the dimness of the bedroom. Her tear-stained face was pale.

Instead of laughing, Akura nodded. But otherwise she didn't move, and Martha was afraid of what would happen if she tried to touch the other woman.

"Um, is…is Argen still here?"

If possible, Akura's pale face went even whiter at the question, but she calmly shook her head and whispered, "No. He left for school this morning."

Martha gritted her teeth against the worry and hurt she felt at Akura's distance and unknown predicament. Her legs were getting tired, and Akura seemed intent on remaining where she was—ready to go or not—so Martha exhaled softly and sat beside her, crossing her legs. She wanted to say something, but her instincts told her to wait.

They sat in silence for several minutes. Then Akura's countenance seemed to sag ever so slightly in defeat and she rested her head on Martha's shoulder.

It was early afternoon when Akura finally stood up and offered Martha a hand to help her do the same. They walked silently through the apartment to see that one of the couples had left and a dark-haired woman was sitting on the end of the couch cradling her head in her hands. She didn't look up as Martha and Akura left.

The drive was quiet. Martha didn't know what to say and she had no idea what was going through Akura's head. Once they reached their own flat, Akura made a beeline for the fridge and gulped down a glass of water before Martha had even closed the front door. Akura refilled the glass as Martha deposited her keys and cell phone on the table next to the door and removed her shoes.

Akura took her water to her room and closed the door, emerging forty-five minutes later pink and damp from a fresh shower and wearing gray sweats and a white tank top. Martha, who had also changed into comfortable clothes, looked up from the stove where she was making grilled cheese sandwiches with bacon when Akura walked in and helped herself to more water. Akura offered a tiny smile and Martha grinned back before turning back to the stovetop, wiggling the spatula she wielded underneath the margarine-coated bread to keep it from sticking to the supposedly nonstick skillet.

Akura watched Martha and Martha was oddly accepting of her silence, although she did expect to get answers at some point. She suspected, however, that she would only have those answers if she didn't rush the other woman and start demanding things. Demands were not what Akura needed right now. Martha didn't know what Akura needed, exactly, but she figured grilled cheese and tomato soup were a good start.

Indeed, Akura hummed appreciatively as she dunked a corner of her sandwich into her steaming bowl of soup and bit into it. Martha watched her for a second before taking a bite of her own food. They ate right there at the counter, neither wanting to move to the table for some reason. When she was finished, Akura hopped onto the counter and sighed, leaning her head against the cabinets behind her. Martha finished the last of her own food, then washed the dishes by hand. She grabbed a glass of water for herself and sat on the counter across from Akura, right on the edge so she wasn't bumping into the coffee maker. Their kitchen was small; only about five feet separated their knees. Martha knew instantly that Akura needed that short distance to say anything about what had happened.

Martha expected Akura to fidget, or look away, or even run away, as she had known Rose to do frequently when it came to talking about uncomfortable subjects. On the contrary, they sat there on the kitchen counters of their shared apartment in Colorado and scrutinized each other intensely. Akura sat slouched against the cabinets while Martha leaned forward with her hands gripping the edge of the counter on either side of her thighs and her elbows locked, water placed off to the side.

Martha had no idea what Akura was thinking, but for once she stopped trying to predict things. She stopped allowing her fear of the Family to control her. She stopped comparing Akura to Rose. She shoved her pathetic insecurities into a large mental safe with thick steel walls and a locked door which could only open with a code she promptly tried to make herself forget.

It really didn't matter that a little more than a month ago Akura had screamed at her to get out of her life, that she didn't need a new mother or a babysitter or an overbearing friend who thought she knew best. It didn't matter that Akura had once yelled for the world to hear that Martha was nothing more than someone with a roof who paid for pretty much all the bills with the considerable amount of insurance money left to her after her grandmother had died an indeterminable number of years ago (indeterminable because in actuality, back home Martha's grandmother was still alive).

It didn't even matter that all Martha had ever done was try to be there for Akura after her mother, father, brother, and boyfriend were killed in a devastating car crash several months ago (even though Akura's real family was actually safe and sound in another universe). Akura's own "insurance money" was left untouched, as far as Martha knew.

None of that mattered because this wasn't about Martha. It wasn't even about Rose. Akura had been the one to push Martha away, and now it would have to be Akura that reached out for her again.

Akura's eyes were dark, sad, and incredibly pained. Her jaw trembled slightly and Martha was positive that it wouldn't take much to make her cry. Otherwise, she appeared deceptively relaxed, though Maura swore she saw the muscles of one of her legs twitch. Akura spoke at the exact moment that Martha thought she would, right when Martha was ready to hear whatever she had to say, and if Martha had not coached herself to expect nothing, she would have been utterly perplexed by what Akura finally said.

"You were there," she said at a volume that was nearly a whisper. "I didn't sleep last night, but the night before that, in my dream, you were there. That was really why I was asking you about it that morning, I just couldn't figure out how to say it right."

Martha said nothing.

"I was in that blue box I was telling you about, but it's bigger on the inside. And I was looking at this green light, and reliving a memory where people I guess I knew died in an explosion, and I was the only one that survived it, but it…it _burned_."

She paused, took a small sip of water, and seemed to have a hard time swallowing. She looked a little nauseous, actually. Although Akura spoke as if she was remembering something from a distant past (which she was, but Martha wasn't going to tell her that), her eyes were clear and focused on Martha's.

"And then there was this noise behind me. The green light went blurry, it was all I could see, and there was this humming…I couldn't hear anything else. Then I turned around and you were standing in front of me, but I said something to you, screamed at you I think, and you didn't even flinch. You said, 'I believe in you,' and then you were pounding on my door telling me to get my ass out of bed. Somehow, though, in my mind it translated to the same thing, 'I believe in you.' In the car, I meant to ask you what you meant by that, but then I remembered that you didn't actually say it, so I just…"

"I do, though." Martha tried, she really did, but she couldn't hold it in. "I do believe in you."

"Then I'll ask you now. What do you mean by that?"

"Everything."

Akura studied her for a moment. Then she took a deep breath, looking up at the ceiling, and let it out slowly. She met Martha's gaze again before telling her, quite calmly, "I was raped last night."

Martha reeled back as if she had been physically struck. She felt faint. Akura was calm, too calm, and her gaze was heartbreakingly sad, haunted, ashamed, vulnerable, shining in the eyes, and Martha had no idea how to react or what to say so she just sat there with her mouth slightly open, face muscles slack with horror, and Akura seemed to be debating with herself about what to say next.

When the cold chill sweeping over her body dissipated (for the most part), Martha jumped off the counter and approached Akura. Akura watched her through half-lidded eyes and when she didn't move Martha covered one of her knees with a hand and finally took a moment to really _look_ at Akura.

Now that she was closer, Martha could see that Akura's skin was prickled with goosebumps. She practically vibrated with a repressed restless energy that Martha had been able to see for weeks but had dismissed as the part of Akura that wanted to see the stars. The muscle spasms she had noted earlier seemed much more obvious now, so that Akura's limbs appeared to be trembling, her legs trying feebly to kick at things Martha couldn't see. Her breathing was quick, quiet, and shallow.

As Martha looked up into Akura's face, she thought that it looked like the other woman had a head cold, and her face was sheet white with a nearly indiscernable green tinge to it, and Martha suddenly knew, though she wasn't quite sure how, that it had been a remarkable feat for Akura to eat the sandwich and soup Martha had made for her. A sheen of sweat had broken out over Akura's brow and her jaw was clenched like she was in pain.

For about thirty seconds, Martha's mind waged a violent, bloody war with itself. Half of it tried to reject what she was seeing and the other half was rapidly piecing the symptoms together with knowledge buried somewhere in the back of her brain. The half that was rapidly winning, the half that screamed at her for denying it, remembered other signs, things she had desperately ignored in an attempt to maintain a semblance of normality in the domestic life she and Akura had been forced to live.

The more she thought about it, the more she couldn't _not_ think about, and finally all the walls Martha had built up around the truth she had suspected for a while but refused to believe came crumbling down to rest in ruin around them.

In the time it took Martha to come to her realization, only about half a minute had passed and Akura was still looking down at her, apparently wanting to say something but unable to think of what, and so was waiting for Martha to do it for her.

There couldn't have possibly been anything worse that could happen. The weight of her failure was so heavy on Martha's back and shoulders that she very nearly collapsed from it. The end of Rose's message echoed painfully in her ears, throbbing like a thunderous heartbeat, tattooed on her soul, branded hotly on the fragile tissue of her brain, drowning out everything else.

_Lastly, Martha, and this is important, the TARDIS is going to create an identity for me that's easy to maintain. That is to say, things that are true for me now, like having no family left in this universe, will still be true when I'm human. Only I won't have planets to save and stars to see, so I might…well, I don't know exactly what human me would be capable of, only that it could be bad. I'm trusting you to protect me from myself, Martha. Not just the watch, me. There's no one else I'd ever trust with that._

Martha found her voice lodged in the black hole that was gaping through her chest.

"Drugs?"

"Yeah. I think. Not sure what kind. Heroin, maybe. And pot. And…others."

"And last night…you took more than usual. Drank a bit, too. And Argen…"

Tears flowed steadily down Akura's cheeks now, and her trembling became a bit more pronounced.

"…and two of his friends," Akura finished. She hiccupped, then sobbed openly, shoulders shaking. "I didn't know what was happening, I thought we were just messing around, but then…" she gulped. Martha squeezed her knee. "Then they closed the door, locked it, and pushed me onto the bed. It's so blurry, I can't, it hurts, Martha. Everything hurts. It _hurts_."

Martha quickly pulled Akura from the counter; the other woman wobbled on her feet, but Martha hugged her too tightly to let her fall. Anger burned hotly in the vicinity of Martha's stomach, so bright and painful she felt it rise up in her throat and spill out like molten fire from her eyes. Murderous rage aimed at Argen, at Akura, at Rose, and most of all at herself exploded in an inferno around her heart. She tightened her grip on Akura, whose entire body was quaking now with the force of her weeping.

**ΘΣ … ΘΣ … ΘΣ**

Martha spent the next week in the flat with Akura, and then refused to leave her side for a week after that. They both got messages declaring that they had been fired from their (needless) jobs, Martha missed a couple calls on her cell phone from concerned classmates, Akura's phone had been turned off the whole time and neither of them felt any inclination to even look at it. Merely halfway through the first week they were out of milk and most other fresh produce, but Martha was the only one eating most of the time anyway so it didn't matter. They were pretty much cut off from the outside world, and it was driving Martha insane.

She had nothing to distract her from Akura's anguished moaning. She had nothing to keep her busy while Akura sat in the corner of her room, shaking all over, dry heaving because there was nothing left to regurgitate, sweating and swearing and scratching at her scalp and skin as if attempting to help something escape from somewhere deep inside while Martha stood in the doorway with her arms wrapped around her chest as if she could hold herself together that way.

Martha had nothing to do but hold Akura when she cried and sing her to sleep with some off-key lullaby she couldn't actually remember the words to while Akura was shaking in her arms. Martha tried to comfort Akura the rare times she fell asleep only to wake up screaming. She tried to coax broth and water down her raw and belligerent throat. She tried to calm Akura when she became so agitated and restless she was pulling her hair out and beating the walls with her fists like a prisoner aching to escape her cage. Martha tried to keep Akura away from sharp objects after she saw her holding the edge of a ceramic shard of a lamp she'd broken against the tender underside of her wrist. She had looked orgasmically ecstatic as the blood streamed away, carrying with it the pain and the need and the overarching _ache_ that refused to even start fading for three days.

Despite all this, Martha was so humbled and in awe of Akura's strength that she often found herself sleeping on the floor in Akura's room so she wouldn't miss a moment of it. While it was indescribably horrible to see Rose's unflappable, self-assured body wracked with untold anguish, and while Martha's feeling of frustrated helplessness was almost just as intolerable, Martha remained amazed throughout the ordeal. She could see the desperate _need_ in Akura's eyes, an unspoken plea that resonated in her being, yet Akura never said a word.

Not once did she try to leave the flat. Not once did she try to convince Martha to give her anything. Akura never begged or pleaded with Martha or God or anyone to make it stop, never did anything but suffer and even then she attempted to do so stoically. When Martha tore ceramic shards and razor blades out of her hands and clamped her own hands around her arms to stop the bleeding, Akura just gritted her teeth and let Martha take care of her, even though it was clear from the look in her eyes that she wanted Martha to shove off and never come back. When Martha held her, Akura didn't push her away. When Martha restrained her to keep her from hurting herself, Akura never struck Martha or tried so hard to escape her confines that she actually succeeded.

There was a resolve in Akura's eyes that was almost frightening. During every lucid moment, Martha tried to get Akura to talk about things, but Akura would just shake her head and stare blankly at the TV until her mind had gone numb enough to shut down. She would clench her fists and grunt when the pain cascaded tightly around her frame, receding and overwhelming in tides that left her dizzy, nauseous, and hyperventilating in a panic she refused to feel completely. Her face would set in a mask of stony determination when the cravings were at their worst, when her insides cried for drugs that would take her pain away, when she and Martha both began to believe that she would die without them, and she would stay that way for minutes or hours until the feeling let up enough to allow her to distract herself with something, _anything_ else.

When the worst of the detoxing was over after about three days, Akura finally confessed to Martha that she had been using her stash of "insurance money" to buy the drugs for over two months, and had been taking them daily in powder form, sometimes as much as four or five times daily, since then, constantly hovering on the edge of overdose. It was the mindless bliss that she needed, Akura said. She didn't need help coping, she just didn't _want_ to cope. The drugs let her forget. Let her move on. Almost two weeks before Martha found her in Argen's apartment, Akura found Hannah Sandoval, a dealer with high-quality heroin for cheap prices. Akura started spending more and more time with Hannah and her friends, among them Argen. The only thing of Argen that Akura would admit to was that he was initially just another distraction among many. Sex with him helped her feel numb to everything else.

These tidbits of information were rarely explained as bluntly or coherently as Martha forced herself to think of them. In her mind, she was creating a chronological journal of sorts recording her failure, and while Akura may have only said something like, "I thought I needed him…he made it all go away," Martha made herself strip away the teen-movie sugarcoating. Perhaps she was becoming masochistic. Or just punishing herself.

But however little Akura actually told her compared to what Martha could deduce, it was enough to make Martha's blood boil; she wanted these people found and put where they belonged. When Akura was sleeping, she made a few calls and tried to see that justice was done, only to find out that Argen had gone missing, Hannah was a suspect in a double homicide that looked like a drug deal gone wrong, two of their friends had already been caught for possession, and there wasn't enough evidence for anyone else to be taken in.

In about the time it took Akura to recover, the monsters that had perpetrated her addiction had managed to move beyond Martha's reach. Like a ridiculous slapstick comedy, the villians all slipped on banana peels and tumbled down the stairs before she had a chance to shoot them with her proverbial gun. It infuriated Martha to no end and she had half a mind to hunt them down anyway even though she had no idea where to to begin. A large, hurt and angry part of her wanted to personally punish them because Martha's own guilt was unmerciful on her.

Akura claimed that she did not intend to press charges, which only served to make Martha angrier; their first and only fight that week concerned Akura's decision to put the past behind her and move on as quickly as possible. The conflict was only resolved when Martha got Akura to agree to see someone for therapy.

Between them rested a thousand apologies on both sides that neither needed to voice. Akura regretted nearly everything she had ever said to Martha and Martha regretted not being there in spite of Akura's enforced distance. Rose's final message was playing on repeat in Martha's head, haunting her dreams and waking moments with a frequency that started to frighten her. To escape her guilt, she joined Akura in reviving their withered friendship. Their first day out of the flat, they went to eat a late lunch at _Bad Wolf Corner_, and a few days later, after Akura's first session with her new therapist, Doctor Josephina Lorne, they had drinks at _The Wolf Den_, both feeling inexplicably like they were celebrating something.

The giddiness of the celebratory stage didn't last long, passing after Martha's second screwdriver and Akura's second sour (Martha had limited her to three drinks; despite her better judgment, she felt that cutting Akura off completely would be counterproductive, and alcohol hadn't been the main problem in the first place). Their giggles faded away and Akura stared into her empty glass if she expected the ice to share the secrets of the universe with her. Martha found herself watching the small crowd that was gathering on the dance floor. She didn't realize she was avoiding Akura's gaze until Akura said something just loudly enough to be heard over the music.

"There are depths even in a household where a whale can live."*

Martha did not register what Akura had said at first, but when she did, she turned her head to stare at the other woman, who was still peering into her glass. Martha frowned, unsure of what to make of Akura's sudden urge to quote poetry.

Finally, she said, "But that's not the only thing there, you know."

Akura smiled a little in acknowledgement, but she seemed determined to be mopey, so she threw a peanut at the bartender and ordered a plain shot, which she stared at instead of drinking. Martha got herself some water instead, not in an attempt to stay sober but to focus more attentively on her companion.

A few minutes later, Akura uttered passionately, "Does Time with his cold wing wither each feeling that once was dear? Yes. Thus the fair hope hath cheated, that led me along so light into that dark place where everything hurt. But in the end, unspoken fears across the nothing bend to let me fight."**

Akura promptly swallowed the whiskey, a slight blush coming to her cheeks with the heat of it. She threw another peanut, missed horribly, and tried again, but the barkeep was engrossed in a conversation with a ruggedly handsome man on the other end of the bar, so she tossed a coaster instead, somehow managing to clip the older woman on the shoulder. A few people around them sniggered when the woman behind the bar growled a sharp curse and stomped over to slam another glass on the bar in front of Akura, narrowly missing her hand. Martha was too lost in thought to care that Akura was breaking the limit. Akura smirked cheekily and clinked the glass against Martha's water before sipping from it almost demurely as she said almost as an afterthought (though certainly a firm one), "And that's all I'll say about it."

Despite the reinforcement of the cool, sweaty glass of water in her hand, Martha was perplexed by Akura's behavior. Only a little while ago they had been laughing about something she couldn't even remember now, though it was funny at the time. It took a strained moment of mental constipation just to recall where Akura's words had come from, and even longer to comprehend their meaning, let alone why Akura had felt the need to say them or why she'd said them in that way.

Akura had finished her fourth shot, started a beer (which she wasn't supposed to be drinking), and was twirling around the dance floor with another woman about fifteen years her senior when Martha finally finished piecing it together in the only way any of it made sense. She did so with a little jolt and a mental curse as she peered into the drunk, sweaty crowd for her friend, breathing a sigh of relief that was lost to the music when she found her.

Martha was was barely even buzzed as she stumbled through the dancers, but she'd had just enough to completely strip away her patience and by the time she got to Akura she was ready to knock some heads together to clear a path to the nearest exit. Akura was in a mindless haze of music and alcohol and it took shoving herself between Akura and the olive-skinned woman she was dancing with to get her attention.

"Martha!" Akura shouted happily. She shoved a bottle in Martha's face, almost impaling her nose up one nostril. "Dance with me!"

Martha snatched the bottle, which was almost empty, and instead of yelling at Akura like she wanted to, she drained the last couple of sips and let the bottle crash to the floor—the noise was lost and ignored as the night-delirious crowd crushed in around them.

"Who are _you_?" demanded Akura's dancing partner, looking hostile and more drunk than Akura.

Akura put her hands on Martha's shoulders and swayed her hips from side to side as the song changed and the music seemed to pulse through her so emphatically Martha could feel it traveling from Akura's hands down her shoulders into her own core. She couldn't help but move with it; the energy around her was like a relentless, unstoppable force and the best she could hope for was surrender and not defeat.

"I'm this one's," she poked Akura in the stomach as she continued to dance, "friend. Martha." She had to shout to be heard. "And you?"

"Fran," the woman replied, still looking cross but not quite as aggressive.

Martha was starting to get overwhelmed by the heat, but she allowed Akura to conduct the flow of their bodies' rhythms, which was only marginally in sync with the music—neither of them were spectacularly graceful on their best days—and used the advantage of the suffocating crowd to put bodies between the two of them and Fran before the other woman even realized it.

By the middle of the next song, Martha had maneuvered them to the exit. Akura pouted, but followed along willingly as Martha called a cab—they didn't live far, but Martha was reluctant to drag her half-drunk friend through the streets this late at night. It was just past midnight. Akura tried to convince Martha to go back inside, and when Martha repeatedly refused, Akura simply began to dance right there on the sidewalk, to the amusement of passersby. Martha rolled her eyes, grasped Akura's hips with both hands and forcefully held her still.

"What has gotten into you, anyway?"

"Jack," Akura giggled, and burped. Martha smiled despite her earlier irritation.

"Impressive. What was that, a seven, at least?"

Akura looked offended. "That was a lot better than a stupid seven, thank ya very mucsh!" She shifted restlessly under Martha's hands. Martha couldn't believe how ridiculous she was acting—she _knew_ Akura couldn't possibly be that drunk.

"Seriously, what is with you tonight? I've never seen you like this."

A shadow passed over Akura's face.

"It's nothin'," Akura waved a dismissive hand. "Only that nobody can touch me in there."

Martha blinked, flummoxed. "Er…"

Akura rolled her eyes and tried unsuccessfully to twist out of Martha's grasp.

"Y'know what I mean!"

"I really don't."

"Dammit, don't make me say it."

"Say what?"

"I trust you, okay!"

"Okay…but what has that got to do with—" Martha gestured vaguely at the club behind them still vibrating with music, "—_that_?"

"Nobody can touch me," Akura repeated.

_I'm trusting you to protect me._

Martha was saved from replying by the arrival of the cab.

**ΘΣ … ΘΣ … ΘΣ**

The following week was blissfully stress-free. Martha enjoyed it with a feeling of hopeless resignation. She knew it wouldn't last; in fact, she was positive that the peace was an illusion drawn up to lull her into a false sense of security and at any moment the shit was going to hit the fan and the world was going to end with a spectacularly anti-climactic whimper. Nonetheless, she'd been through too much lately not to take what she could get and revel in the relatively quiet life of a first-year college student.

Classes were boring, but again, Martha welcomed this momentary reprieve. Akura attended school as regularly as Martha did now; in fact, she began waking up earlier than Martha and banged on _her_ door in the morning. Martha quelched the urge to investigate Akura's rapid change of heart because she was too grateful for it to allow herself to worry. And she carefully regulated Akura's exposure to alcohol, and she trusted Akura to stay away from the hard stuff, so there couldn't possibly be anything wrong with Akura being happy for once, right? Martha ignored the feeling in her gut that told her it was natural for Akura to be so…_normal_ after what had happened ot her.

Melissa was happy, for Akura started to spend more time with her and the other students that had made up their group before Akura got caught up in Hannah Sandoval's web. Akura also made an effort to spend more time with Martha, even if it was just lounging in front of the telly late at night watching a movie.

Twice a week, Martha drove Akura to a psychiatrist's office. Doctor Lorne was a middle-aged woman with bright red hair and a brusque, no-nonsense attitude and a witty, sarcastic disposition that put Martha off but to which Akura took an immediate shine. Akura never spoke about these sessions, but Martha had a strange sense that Akura was both more tense and more relaxed when she went to pick her up. Martha wasn't sure if the therapist was actually helping her any; true to Akura's word at the bar the other night at the _Den_, she never said anything more about what had happened, and Martha had no idea if she kept that up with Doctor Lorne.

It worried her, the way Akura seemed willing to just put everything behind her. It seemed to Martha like there needed to be more of a struggle, perhaps a dramatic breakdown or a fight where they screamed at each other just to put everything out there and work through it. Instead, it felt too much like living with Rose Tyler had. Rose had never wanted to talk about the deeper, more emotionally-driven aspects of their adventures. There was so much that went unsaid between them, and they both knew exactly what those things were, so Rose - and Akura, evidently - seemed to think that that negated the necessity for talking about things. Martha couldn't help but think it would all explode one day.

Neither Martha nor Akura had a job anymore, so they found other ways to fill the time. Occasionally, they went to the gym—Lupus Nocens Fitness Center—together. They both enjoyed jogging outdoors, something about always needing to be on the move even as they were tied down to one town with school and all, so that was another thing they had fun doing together. Martha, inspired by Akura's drunken confession, took to writing poetry; Akura discovered quite by accident that she rather enjoyed cooking.

While Martha attempted to avoid _Bad Wolf Corner_ like the plague, paranoid that she would once again find Rose and the face-changing Doctor there, it was challenging. Akura, after all, loved the place. One Sunday Akura was absently discussing lunch plans with Martha as they watched the highlights of an American football game on TV, concentrating more on the constant stream of texts her phone was receiving than on their conversation.

"We haven't been to the _Corner_ in forever, Martha."

"Don't you want to try something new?"

"Hmm?" Akura looked up from her phone briefly. "No. I mean, yeah, sure, but fries sound _really_ good today, don't you think?"

_Fries_. Martha mentally snorted.

"I was actually thinking about pizza."

Akura finished tapping out a text, then wrinkled her nose and frowned at Martha. "We just had that huge order a couple days ago, remember? There's still leftovers in the fridge. You coulda had a cold slice for breakfast if you wanted."

"Yeah, well, I didn't want pizza _then_, or now, but in a couple hours…Akura, are you even listening to me?"

Akura was smirking at her latest text. "Yeah, of course I am. Look, I have to go, so I'll meet you at the _Corner_ at around one?"

Without waiting for a reply, Akura left the flat. Martha cursed the door under her breath as it closed. She had a bad feeling about lunch.

At one, _Bad Wolf Corner_ was packed. The café didn't have a parking lot, but the street out front was lined with cars and pedestrians milled around outside. Martha had to park almost half a block away. It was a beautiful brisk day, snow had just fallen the day before and the sun was bright and cold.

Martha was early because she hadn't had anything better to do, so she strolled leisurely to the _Corner_. She slowed when she came to the alley in which she knew the TARDIS was hidden in a shack, and couldn't help but turn her head in that direction as she passed the mouth of the alley. Then she did a double take and stopped in her tracks at what she saw, eyes wide.

Parked about hundred yards in, not far from that run-down shack, was the TARDIS. Or rather, _a_ TARDIS; it couldn't be theirs. Their TARDIS was hidden in a shack, powered down. Heart hammering in her chest, Martha tried to take a deep breath to calm herself down, but it didn't work. She knew the peace was too damn good to be true. She _knew_ it was a bad idea to come back the _Corner_ knowing that Rose had been there before. She _knew_ everything was going to fall apart.

First she texted Akura. Tried to tell her not to come without making it sound like anything was wrong, but after three texts in a row without getting a reply, Martha finally tried calling. The ringtone went straight to voicemail; Akura's phone must have died or been turned off. Martha growled in frustration and resisted the urge to throw her phone against the pavement. Now what?

Martha ran. She burst into the café a minute later, startling a few patrons, and looked around wildly until she found them. Something fluttery erupted in her stomach along with an ice-cold burst of adrenaline that shot through her veins when she spotted a bottle-blonde Rose sitting in a booth across from a gorgeous dark-haired man in a brown pinstriped suit, the first Doctor that Martha had met, back on Kallisto. There was a large basket of chips between them and they were talking about something quietly with large smiles and emphatic hand gestures.

It looked like a date, honestly, and Martha wasn't sure why that made her feel weird but she didn't have time to analyze it.

Martha stormed up to their table and leaned over them; Rose and the Doctor looked up sharply, startled by her sudden and intruding presence.

"You need to get out of here," Martha hissed, glancing at the petrified wood-shaped clock hanging on the wall behind her. Less than five minutes until one. Martha prayed to every god that would listen that Akura would not show up early. In fact, it would be great if she didn't show up at all. "Right_ now_, before she sees you!"

The Doctor and Rose both drew their eyebrows together in confusion and glanced at each other before gawking again at Martha.

Martha yanked at the ends of her straightened hair and danced from foot to foot impatiently.

"_Please_ don't question it, just leave! I don't know why this keeps happening to me and not _her_, but right now I'm grateful for it. So? Hop to it! LEAVE, dammit, or I swear to God I'll…er…scream!"

The Doctor did his best impression of a fish and Rose just looked positively baffled. Martha wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shake her. They already had the attention of a good portion of the café.

Martha heard the café door open and she squeezed her eyes shut tightly before turning around and opening them to see who had come in.

"Oh fuck," Martha breathed in despair as Akura spied her immediately and waved, grinning. The brunette started to walk over. "I'm going to hell. I'm _in_ hell. This cannot be happening, this can_not_ be happening—"

Akura stopped short as soon as she saw Rose. Rose's jaw fell open as she watched her look-alike approach them. The Doctor gave a very undignified squeak. The time travellers both started looking around as if expecting magical flying beasts to appear out of nowhere and devour them.

"Akura," Martha faked a wide, beaming smile, making sure to put some heavy emphasis on her name for Rose and the Doctor's benefit. "Hi! You're a little bit early!"

Akura eyed her suspiciously before turning to stare openly at Rose. Rose looked like she wanted to melt into her seat and hide; Akura grinned.

"Do I have a twin I never knew about?"

Martha cringed.

* * *

**I stepped pretty far out of my comfort zone on this one, not just with the drug thing, but with the Rose-being-human-and-stuck-on-Earth thing; I'm much better with aliens, I think. There's more room to maneuver in make believe. Attempting to simulate RL for people like Rose and Martha is next to impossible to be honest, and that's why I glossed over most of it.**

**And Akura has a bit of a different personality than Rose, although you can see Rose in her if you squint hard enough, like Martha did. I'm still not sure if I pulled it off, so some feedback on that would be really nice. I aim to improve here, guys, and I can't do that without knowing what needs improving.**

***"Whale in the Blue Washing Machine" by John Haines**

****"Has Sorrow Thy Young Days Shaded" by Thomas Moore; and a little extra by some imaginary famous poet in this episode's present's recent past (if that makes sense)**

**I kind of wanted to explain why I put these quotes in here and modified them and everything, but that would kind of defeat the purpose so I'll just leave it as is.**


	20. A Sun Will Burn, Part I

**I hate writing so much damn dialogue.**

**Episode 10****  
****A Sun Will Burn, Part I**

"Do I have a twin I never knew about?"

Martha cringed. The Doctor and Rose were gobsmacked.

Great, this was all up to Martha then.

"I know, right?" she exclaimed, as though just as amazed as Akura at Rose's resemblance to her. "I mean really, what are the chances?" She glared at Rose and all but growled, "Really, what are the friggin' chances?"

The Doctor and Rose exchanged a thoroughly puzzled look and Martha plastered on a smile.

Akura plopped down in the seat across from Rose and opened her mouth to begin the interrogation.

"Honestly though, Akura, it's a bit rude just inviting ourselves on their date—"

"Martha, this woman looks just like me. I'm sure she's just as curious as I am. Or wait," Akura faced Rose and leaned forward. Rose flinched back. "Do you know who I am?"

"N-no, I don't, sorry."

The Doctor's head swiveled as he looked back and forth between them.

Akura thrust her hand across the table. "My name is Akura Kraft."

Martha wanted to crawl in a hole and die when Rose stared at the hand like it was a bomb that was seconds away form detonating.

Luckily, a waiter cleared his throat from behind Martha, attracting the startled attention of all four of them. Martha nudged Akura, who retracted her hand and slid over to make room. As Martha sat down, the waiter took Akura's order of burger and…fries. Martha had lost her appetite as soon as shed spotted the TARDIS, but to appease Akura she got some chips anyway. The waiter left and Akura turned to Rose expectantly.

"Well, I must say we're just as curious as you are, aren't we Rose?"

Rose nodded in agreement with the Doctor. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm…Rose Tyler." Now that Akura was sitting across from the Doctor, it would have been more awkward to shake hands, so Rose didn't even have to offer.

Akura was watched carefully by the other occupants of the table, but she showed nothing more than an honest interest Rose's identity, no recognition or malignance. The Doctor met Martha's frightened gaze, searching.

"So, Rose Tyler. Any relation to…Jaqueline Prentice? That's my mother. My dad was Peter Kraft."

Rose struggled not to show too much emotion on her face. "Er…no. My mum's name is J…Josephine. My dad is, er...Adam...Tyler."

Akura looked somewhat disappointed. The Doctor looked like he wanted to laugh, but was too confused to do so.

"Well, my…older brother could have…no, that wouldn't make sense, would it? No offense, but you look way too old for Ricky to have been your dad. How old are you?"

"Twenty-one. You?"

Akura grinned. "Twenty-two. Well, almost. My birthday's not until April, but I like the number twenty-two." She gasped. "Do you think we could be twins?"

"September," Rose lied quickly. Akura's face fell.

"Well, that's just as well. Ricky—he was thirty-four—and my parents…well, they died a few months back, along with my boyfriend. Car crash. They were on their way to visit me in London, where I met Martha a couple of years ago. I like to travel," Akura smiled grimly, "but I haven't really felt up to it since then."

The Doctor and Rose looked at Martha, who refused to either confirm or deny Akura's statement.

"I'm sorry," Rose offered compulsorily. Akura waved her off.

"Eh, Martha's been helping me." Akura smiled brightly at Martha, who had the fleeting thought that because she wasn't blinded by it, it wasn't real at all. "I stayed with her for a while until she suggested moving out here to get a new start. She had friends that lived here before, I think. Isn't that right?"

Martha nodded stiffly. She had needed to play along these last months with whatever Akura believed was the truth, even when she herself didn't know what that was. She was used to it by now.

"Yeah, they were travelers too. Settled down here for a while until they needed to get moving again. I haven't heard from them in years, but I thought this might be a nice place to…start over."

To her relief, the waiter returned just then with their drinks, refilling the Doctor's and Rose's iced teas and reassuring them that their food would only be a few minutes more.

"So, that accent," said Akura when he was gone. "Are you from London?"

"Yeah." Rose was now recovering from the shock of seeing what could be her future amnesiac self. "I'm visiting a friend of mine." She nudged the Doctor's shoulder with her own.

"Yeah?" Akura turned her head to appraise the Doctor. "So, what about you? Why did you move from London? Or are from somewhere else?"

"London," he agreed. Then he put on a new accent, "Born and raised in Scotland, though. I had some disagreements with my family and came to America to get away."

Akura was delighted. If Martha hadn't known any better, she may have even been convinced. Even Rose looked impressed.

"Pretty coincidental then, isn't it?" said Rose. "Us meeting here, no relation to each other…looking so much alike."

She gave a significant look to Martha, who again struggled not to reveal anything on her face.

"Very coincidental," agreed the Doctor.

"Coincidental," Martha muttered quietly.

"Well I, for one, do not believe in coincidences," said Akura. "I think sometimes things in the universe align just right, you know? Not fate, not destiny, just circumstances meeting up with other circumstances. Maybe it was meant to happen, but more likely it's this...cosmic build-up of the choices we make. Does that make sense? Sorry, philosophy's not exactly my area of expertise."

"No, I get what you mean," said Rose. "Completely. I mean, yeah, sometimes things just seem to good to be true, yeah? Or bad. Like, unbelievably bad. And it makes you want to believe that it was supposed to happen like that."

"Right? But it depends on _choices_."

"But then there's this: what if, no matter what, we were always going to make the same choices because of who we are. Then are we really choosing?"

Akura shook her head emphatically. "No, see, it's not like that. We _change_, you know? We're changing all the time. What we are one minute may not be what we are in the next, so we _could_ make different choices than what our basic human nature says we will."

"There is no basic human nature," Rose argued promptly. "People are too different. And sure, we're changing, but what if they way we change is sort of predetermined, too? Like, we all start out with a unique soul that can and will change, but only a certain way?"

To Martha's alarm, Akura paled with a stricken expression. "It can't be, though. People can choose to change, for better or worse."

Rose seemed to sense that she'd distressed her counterpart.

"No, of course," she said. "Of course we can choose to change. I'm not saying that we're _limited_ to being certain things, I just mean that there has to be something unique about each and every one of us. An' that uniqueness, right, is what doesn't change; it sort of-guides us along, d'you know what I mean? Like even if we don't know exactly who we are, and no matter how we change, I'm still _me_, you're still..._you_, down at the bottom of it all, at the heart."

They both fell silent then, Rose out of the strangeness of having just philosophically argued with herself and Akura withdrawing to think.

The Doctor and Martha had been watching the exchange with bemusement and now exchanged weary gazes.

"Do I know you from somewhere?" the Doctor said suddenly, peering at Martha. "You look familiar."

"I don't think—"

"Hold on, hold on, you were the one that—"

"Doctor, I really don't think—"

"A-ha!"

Martha fought the urge to beat her head against the table. Rose nudged the Doctor, who loudly coughed to cover up his a-ha moment, causing Akura to stare at him incredulously.

"You aren't fooling anyone," she said flatly, and the Doctor stopped, looking put out. Rose covered her eyes with one hand, shaking her head.

Just then, the waiter appeared with Akura's and Martha's food. Martha went through the motions of preparing to eat but couldn't bring herself to put anything in her mouth for fear of sicking up.

"So," said Akura after taking a bite of her burger. "How _do_ you two know each other?"

"He was my doctor a few years back," Martha blurted before the Doctor could say anything and bungle things up even more. "Yeah, I was in Denver on a, um, field trip. Broke my ankle hiking through the mountains. Really, I'm surprised he remembers me. He looked a lot different back then." She glared at him pointedly.

"Right," the Doctor confirmed, nodding. "Of course, I remember you, with your…ankle…all swollen and—what was your name again? Martha, right? Martha what?"

Martha glared murder at him, but put on the spot she didn't have a choice. What the hell was wrong with him? Surely he'd deduced that they were from his future, why would ask about it? Why hadn't he and Rose left already? Surely now that they'd talked with Akura, they could leave without making Akura suspicious of anything.

"Jones. I'm Martha Jones."

"Right, right. Pleased to meet you again, Martha, under much better circumstances, I'd say." He winked at Akura, showing that he'd listened. Akura smiled a little shyly, tongue sticking between her teeth. The Doctor blinked and looked at Rose before smiling back at Akura.

Rose had her eyes narrowed, like she was trying to remember Martha as well. Martha saw in her eyes when she pinpointed that moment in the alley, but Rose quickly controlled her expression so Akura wouldn't notice anything amiss. Martha wasn't sure if she'd be able to work Rose into her bullshit story, too.

Suddenly, Akura jumped, dropping a salty chip into a small pool of ketchup. She reached into her back pocket, bumping elbows with Martha, and pulled out her phone. _Sure_, Martha rolled her eyes, now the damn thing was taking messages.

With Akura distracted, Martha frantically gestured for the Doctor and Rose to take their leave. Rose just sat back and crossed her arms, stretching her legs out and forcing Martha to bring her own in close. The Doctor munched on a chip and grinned when Martha glared at him.

_You have to leave_, she mouthed emphatically.

Rose cleared her throat and used her head to gesture at Akura, who had put her phone down and was hastily scarfing the last half of her burger.

"Sorry," she said, "I'd really love to talk more, but I didn't expect to be running into…" she eyed Rose, "well, someone so beautiful, and I have plans I can't postpone."

Martha stared at her. What plans?

Sensing her gaze, Akura wiped her hands and mouth on a napkin before touching Martha's arm and leaning close to whisper, "Don't worry, I just promised Kitty and her mom that I'd help them move into their new apartment." She leaned back to look Martha in the eye. "You trust me, don't you?"

Martha wasn't sure she did, actually, but she didn't want to say that, in case she was pushed away again.

"It's not a matter of trust," said Martha quietly. "You practically said yourself my job is to protect you, remember?"

Akura smiled brightly and leaned forward one more time to say in Martha's ear, "I know." Then she gently pushed on Martha's arm and Martha reluctantly stood up to let her out. "We have to meet again sometime," she said to Rose. Rose smiled tightly and and nodded. "Get her number for me?" Akura asked Martha, touching her shoulder. Martha agreed, and Akura finally, blissfully, left.

As soon as the café door closed, Martha heaved a huge sigh of relief, closing her eyes. Then the Doctor coughed and her eyes shot open. She stood up and pulled Rose along with her.

"You two, come with me," Martha bit out. She tossed enough money to cover hers and Akura's food and barely gave Rose enough time to do the same. Then she yanked Rose along behind her as she marched out and down the street towards the TARDIS. The Doctor hurried to keep up.

She kept up a litany of curses under her breath as they walked, not giving either of them a chance to say a word. Ignoring the TARDIS that was standing far too conspicuously in the alley (Christ, what if Akura had seen it?), Martha pulled open the rusty shed door and ushered Rose and the Doctor inside. Then she pulled the key from around her neck and unlocked the door to _her_ TARDIS, as she was growing fond of calling it.

The Doctor and Rose hesitated at the threshold before following Martha inside. They stared around at the darkened interior in shock.

"What happened?" whispered Rose, horrified.

Martha, who had taken a moment to greet the ship with a palm to the center console, spun around to face her, furious.

"I'll tell you what happened!" Martha all but shouted. "You two are going to get us all bleeding _killed_! First it was Dumbo," she pointed an accusing finger at the Doctor, who looked properly offended, "and then you come _back_, and not only do you come back, but you just _sit_ there all dumb and shocked and innocent and IN THE PAST the one day Akura _insists_ on going to the bleedin' _Corner_. Do have _any_ idea how much danger you've put us all in? God damn you, everything was going fine!"

Far from out of steam but hopelessly out of breath, Martha stopped and stood there panting and wishing her glare could melt the both of them on the spot.

"Where am I? Future me, I mean." The Doctor asked as though Martha were not in the process of giving them a good eye-thrashing.

Martha's eye twitched. "I think you're at the flat," she lied. "The one we're all sharing because I can't let the two of you out of my sight without the world falling apart."

"Why's that, then?" Rose spoke up. "How come I can't remember who I am?"

Martha merely replied with a sharp glare.

"Oh, come on, cat's out of the bag," said the Doctor. "Although, I never understood that saying. What does that even _mean_, to let the cat out of the bag? What was it doing in there in the first place? Wouldn't it suffocate?"

"Don't be stupid," Martha snapped. "I'm not exactly new to this, I'll have you know. I tell either of you anything, bad things happen. You already know too much, I think. Anyway, how do you change your face like that? A couple weeks ago you were…different."

"I regenerated."

"_I'm gonna die, Martha. I can't…I might regenerate, or something; I don't want to change, I can't…"_

Martha frowned at the memory of Rose's terrified voice.

"What's that?"

"It's sort of a Time Lord's way of cheating death. When I die, every cell in my body changes, making me a new person. New face, new Doctor, same memories."

Well, this was new. Is that what happened to Rose on Omega? Did she die and change? But no, that couldn't be right; Rose was still Rose, she hadn't changed a bit, except for her hair.

"You were so rude that night," said Rose suddenly. "I just remembered when we were at the diner; what the hell were you hassling her for, anyway?"

"Oi, she had psychic paper! And a key to the TARDIS!"

"Yeah, _this_ one, obviously! God, you're so daft, you couldn't just leave her be—"

"Hey!" Martha interrupted before the Doctor could retort. She'd gathered that this one was more talkative but just as rude and insulting as the one with the leather jacket. Come to think of leather jackets, wasn't that rather Rose's style, now? Was that where she'd gotten it from? Or could that be a coincidence? Recalling what Akura had said about coincidence, Martha felt another urge to rip out her own hair.

Rose and the Doctor ignored her, though. Martha tried again to get their attention, but they were debating the finer points of what was and was not justifiably rude. Rolling her eyes, she reached into her jacket and pulled out the sonic screwdriver. Changing it to a setting Rose had shown her once to take care of a nasty infestation of poisonous bats when they were trapped in the vast Caverns of Leonis, she flicked the switch and a piercing buzz cut through the air.

They winced and covered their ears, as expected, then stared in disbelief at the glowing yellow probe in her hand. Satisfied, if a little deaf now herself, she tucked it back into her jacket.

"Why was it yellow?" Rose demanded.

Martha was puzzled, but decided not to dwell on it; she needed to make them leave.

"Anyway, you have get out of here. The longer you stay, the more dangerous it is."

"Nah, I don't think that really matters. Well, it might be dangerous to be here, but staying might not be. Well, I say it might not be-"

"Doctor, what year did you say it was?"

"2059. No, wait—it has to be at least 2065. Oh! Hang on, no, it might not be, er…Martha?"

Martha rolled her eyes.

"It's December 2069." Rose exchanged another look with the Doctor. "Why? Is that important?"

"How much longer were you planning on staying?"

"Erm…about a week or so."

Rose breathed a sigh of relief. "Should we tell her?"

"Sure, I like telling people things about the future. It's a bit like poking a sleeping dragon. Fun and games until the part where you burst into flame."

"That was _not_ my fault."

"No? My mistake, it must have been some other evil, pink and yellow…_beast_ that said, 'Ooh, look, a sleeping dragon. I've never fought a dragon before. I wonder what it feels like to get torched; let's wake it up and make it play with us for a while.'"

"Shut up, I did not say that. I thought it was fake."

"Well, it was just a robot. Mind you, it was just a robot that lit a fire right under our—"

"All _right_, I'm sorry. How many times do I have to say it? You'd think it would be easy to get over that—"

"You weren't the one that lost a perfectly good jacket—"

"No, I just climbed on top of the thing and used _my_ flaming shoe to melt its eyes—"

"But then you only had the one shoe and you were running so _slow_—"

"Still faster than you. Anyway, Martha just said she's not going to be here much longer. It's nothing like the dragon-robot-thing."

"But she knows people that are going to be here next year, Rose, and that's what matters."

"Well, we ended it, didn't we? I mean, it didn't go on for more than a few months, anyway."

"But people _died_, Rose. Would you want to know that your friends could possibly die in the future when there is nothing you can do about it?"

"Yes!"

"Okay, fine, but do you think _Martha_ would want to know?"

"Yes!" Martha finally shouted, pleased to affirm her own existence in the universe.

The Doctor stared at her, gobsmacked.

"Well…you can't."

Martha rolled her eyes.

"That's too bad since I already figured it out. Let me guess, there's gonna be another world war before the end of this year."

Rose and the Doctor were silent. Martha's eyes went wide.

"Oh my God, I'm _right_?"

"Well..."

Martha cursed.

"Why?" she demanded. "What the hell starts it?"

Rose shrugged. "We're not really sure, actually."

"The violence broke out around Lupus Nocens somewhere around the end of December, but no one knows what caused it. The town was vaporized by nuclear attack in January."

"SOMEone knows," Rose disagreed as Martha flinched at the news of nuclear vaporization next month. "But everyone blames each other for it and the real story never came out. Anything from giant wolves to murderous robots could have been the ones to actually start the war."

"Probably the one about the wolves," muttered Martha.

Rose and the Doctor peered at Martha speculatively.

"You know, Akuro means 'evil wolf' in Japanese."

"Yeah, and the town is called Lupus Nocens, and that café down the street is _Bad Wolf Corner_, there's a club not too far from our flat called _Wolf Den_, the school mascot is a wolf, and the local radio station is called 'The Howling.' The whole universe has gone mad with this 'bad wolf' thing. What of it?"

The other two exchanged a very significant glance that filled Martha with burning frustration.

"Well?!"

"Where else have you seen the message?"

Ha! So it _was_ a message.

"Where haven't I, more like," Martha muttered. "It's everywhere, and it's the worst here, and _this_ damn machine," she kicked the console out of spite, "knows it!" The TARDIS thrummed as best it could in protest, but it was barely existent since it was running off emergency power. Martha huffed. "I wish Rose had told me what it meant," she said, mostly to herself. "But maybe she couldn't see it."

"She saw it," said the Doctor. "How could she not? But that's behind us, it's over, it happened, it's done. Haven't seen anything remotely wolf-like since 1879."

Martha gave him a scathing look, and his smile faded.

"Sorry. But seriously, it probably means nothing."

Martha wondered why she kept looking to the Doctor for answers. She didn't even know the man…alien. So she looked at Rose instead.

"Is he right? Does it really mean nothing?"

Rose opened her mouth to reply, then shut it. The Doctor nudged her subtly with his shoulder, but she crossed her arms and looked down and to the side. The Doctor huffed.

"Of course it's nothing," he said. "Right? Has to be."

"Did we never tell you about Satellite Five?" Rose asked Martha.

Martha frowned, wracking her brain. Satellite Five, Satellite Five…

"No. I guess it never came up."

"Well, Rose and I are always for moving on, living in the future, not the past—well, sometimes in the past, but not ours; you know how it goes."

Martha returned her gaze to Rose. She studied the blonde for the first time since her panicked run into the _Corner_. This past Rose held herself a little differently, a bit more slouched, more fidgety, more self-conscious, deferent and almost clinging to the Doctor. Even in the gloom of the half-dead TARDIS, her big doe eyes seemed brighter and browner, no unearthly gold flecks or haunted pain or anger. Like the universe was a great big joke and only she and the Doctor were privy to its humor. She still had that strong, defiant tilt in her chin, but she was wearing too much makeup and her lips seemed to always be on the verge of a smile that was too bright, too genuine for her to even be the same person that Martha knew. This Rose was free and hopeful and happy, but she was limited by both her innocence and her dependence on the Doctor. She seemed so young.

Martha hadn't realized that she'd spoken that last sentences out loud until Rose protested, "Oi, I can't be much younger than you!"

And she wasn't, Martha knew. But that hadn't been what she'd meant, anyway.

"I meant…" her voice trailed off. "You changed so much, didn't you." It wasn't a question, and to Martha's horror, her eyes were beginning to sting. She quckly blinked the tears away.

Rose seemed a bit perturbed, and Martha forced herself to think on other things.

The Doctor was reluctant to talk about Satellite Five, whatever that was, but if it had a connection to Bad Wolf, then Martha needed to learn about it or she might not be able to protect Akura from whatever came next.

"Why are you so eager for us to leave, anyway?" the Doctor's eyes were shrewd as he watched Martha watch Rose. She wondered what he saw, whether he'd guessed that she knew his companion far better than she knew him. "Obviously we're hiding from something, but what could be so dangerous that Rose and I would have to wipe our memories? I mean, I'm assuming that mine got wiped as well, if hers did. And why are you the one left protecting us?"

Martha refused to answer. "Tell me about Satellite Five," she said instead.

The Doctor frowned. "No."

"What if I need to know?"

"You don't."

"Hold on, though, Doctor," Rose interrupted. "Something's still not making sense."

"What? What are you talking about, what isn't?"

"Well, Martha said that you were somewhere around here, sharing a flat with her and—and Akura, right? But then why didn't Akura recognize you?"

"Different face," said Martha quickly, trying to cover her tracks. "I didn't recognize him either, but since he was with you, I just assumed—"

"No, you didn't," Rose contradicted. "You knew who both of us were right away, I saw you look at him first when you came marching up to our table, like you were surprised to see him there, but you knew who he was. What are you playing at?" The blonde was getting angry now, more closely resembling the Rose that Martha was used to.

"Tell me about Satellite Five," Martha insisted, trying to change the subject.

"I'm not here, am I?" The Doctor stepped closer. "Are you trying to steal the TARDIS? Maybe I wiped Rose's memory to protect her and ran because you were an enemy."

Martha scoffed. "You'd never run off without her." She knew he would run off in a heartbeat, though. Running was essential to this kind of life.

The Doctor got a funny look on his face.

"And neither would you, hm? You said to Akura that it was your job to protect her, and you weren't lying about that. Which can only mean that I'm not here…because something happened to me." Rose gasped, covering her mouth with both hands. "Something happened to me and now Rose is in hiding because of it."

Martha stared at him. A snort escaped her before she could stop it, then her lips twitched, until finally she was doubled over with laughter. She wiped a tear from her eye and looked up to acknowledge their bemused expressions but a fit of giggles corrupted her again.

Regaining her composure, she smiled patronizingly at the Doctor, "You are _so_ full of it, aren't you? Really, you are. Your Lordship." She snorted again and tried to not start chuckling. "You are just so…arrogant. It's amazing, truly, it is. I had no idea anyone's ego could get so huge."

Nonplussed, the Doctor looked to Rose for help, who shrugged.

"Look, I'll tell you that you've got it all wrong, but only because it's embarrassing to think that _my_ Rose is in hiding because of _you_. I won't tell you anything more than that, though. Please understand that this _is_ your future we're talking about, hell, living in right now, and unless you're going to tell me about whatever Satellite Five is and what it has to do with Bad Wolf, then you need to leave. Right now."

"There's nothing to it," the Doctor protested. "Any-any _remains_ of Bad Wolf that might be lying around...well, that's just coincidence."

Martha leveled a flat stare at him. He flushed.

Rose, however, no longer seemed to gravitate toward the Doctor. She was thinking, and coming to some conclusion that Martha couldn't see until Rose opened her mouth.

"Do you know what a Dalek is?"

"Rose, no—"

"Doctor, shut up. She deserves to know, all right?" The Doctor clamped his mouth shut, plopping himself down on the tan seat. Rose nodded with satisfaction and leaned up against the console with Martha. "So, do you?"

"Yes."

"Right, so you know how nasty they are. Well, their Emperor—"

"Emperor?!" Martha gasped. Rose glared. "Sorry. Continue."

"Their Emperor was building a huge army by luring humans from Earth onto Satellite Five, a massive space station where humans played game shows where their lives literally depended on the outcome. The Daleks used transmat beams to transport the competitors onto a Dalek ship, where they were…converted. There were millions of them."

Rose paused. Martha was picturing the Daleks she'd seen in New York, multiplied by a million. She shuddered. Being struck by lightning was _not_ fun, but she'd do it over and over if it meant keeping those wretched things out of existence.

"The Doctor, Jack, and I…sorry, do you know who Jack is?" Martha thought of the Face of Boe and nodded silently. "Anyway, we were taken from the TARDIS and forced to compete in the shows. We escaped and found the people who ran the shows and tried to stop it. Then the Daleks revealed themselves and the Doctor tried to rig up a delta wave transmitter to kill them all. Trouble was, the delta wave wasn't just going to kill the Daleks, it was going to kill everything. So he…" she stopped and glared at the Doctor, who looked more smug than remorseful.

"He sent you away," Martha guessed.

"Tricked me, more like. Anyway, I had to get back, but I didn't think it could be done, since I can't fly the TARDIS." _Yet_, Martha thought with amusement. "Then I saw the message—Bad Wolf—scattered all over the estate, and I knew I had to do _something_ and I knew that there had to be a way. So I had Mickey, my boyfriend," Martha rose an eyebrow at this tidbit, "use a big yellow truck hooked up to the console to open up the heart of the TARDIS."

"The heart of the TARDIS?" Martha questioned. "What is that?"

"A window into the time vortex," said the Doctor. He was reclining with his hands laced behind his head, but he didn't look relaxed. "It is a direct connection to the fabric of space and time, really sort of an anomaly in the space-time continuum. It's where the TARDIS gets its power. A Slitheen was once regressed to an egg when she looked into the heart because she wished for a clean slate. Rose, though…" his voice trailed off in awe.

Martha didn't know what a Slitheen was, but she figured that this heart was pretty freaking powerful.

"When I looked into it, I…well, I don't exactly remember what happened, but the heart gave me complete control over all of space and time."

Martha's eyebrows shot towards her hairline.

"Yeah, I know. I used it to make the TARDIS bring me back to Satellite Five. The energy of the time vortex was running through my head…and I turned the Daleks to dust with a wave of my hand."

Martha's jaw dropped a little. Holy bleeding hell.

"That wasn't it, though. The words Bad Wolf had been following us around since I started traveling with the Doctor, and it was important to bringing me back to him in time to save his life. While I still had the power, I scattered the words across time and space as a message. A warning, of sorts."

"How come you're not still all…y'know…god-like?"

"Oh, the Doctor took it out of me because it was killing me. No one's meant to have that much power, and it was burning me up. Even the Doctor, after he took it…he was forced to regenerate."

"_Ohh_."

Well. This was definitely interesting. It certainly made Martha re-think every odd, eerily supernatural thing that Rose had ever done. That incident in Bethlam Hospital with Shakespeare was the first thing that came to mind. She remembered how the Carrionite had claimed that one touch would cause death, but when she touched Rose, Rose seemed to explode with that blinding golden aura of light. Then there was that unnatural sickness that the Doctor himself had to help Martha cure…

It was troublesome. The Rose that was standing in front of her was almost positively one hundred percent human. Had looking into the heart of the TARDIS started the process of mutating Rose's DNA? At this point in her timeline, had Rose shown any signs of changing into something inhuman? At Royal Hope, Rose had seemed honestly surprised that the Judoon's scanners labeled her as non human.

Was this why Rose had never told her anything, because she genuinely didn't know the answers?

"So, with the message being here…"

"It can't mean anything," the Doctor insisted yet again. "Satellite Five is done, it's over."

Martha looked at him thoughtfully. What had happened at Satellite Five would never be over, Martha thought. It had changed Rose's life permanently, changed her into something else. She didn't know it yet, perhaps, but one day her DNA would mutate into something else. The Doctor was wrong. It was never over.

But she couldn't very well tell him that, could she?

"What confuses me is that I never mentioned it to you before. I mean, think about it, you said it's been everywhere. I would have noticed that."

Martha thought so, too, but it was awkward talking to Rose about her future self, so she tried to move the conversation along.

"It doesn't really matter right now why you never told me. What worries me is that it seems your all-powerful self decided to warn us about something here, in this town, and I don't know what it is. Considering everything going on right now…God, if they find us…"

"The Family!" The Doctor shouted, jumping to his feet. Rose jumped, bumping into Martha. "Of course! It makes perfect sense now. If the Family felt that there was even a shadow of an echo of a sliver of a trace of Huon particles or time vortex energy in Rose, they would go after her, and the best, really sort of the _only_ way to beat them is to let them starve to death, so Rose would have to hide, which meeeeansss," he darted around the console to other side, where the Chameleon Arch was still lowered, hiding in the shadows. He looked daunted by the confirmation of his theory. "The Chameleon Arch. That would certainly account for the identity crisis. Where's the watch?"

Martha's hand instinctively flinched toward the front right pocket of her jeans to cover it protectively. The Doctor's eyes followed the movement.

"Doctor? What's the Chameleon Arch? Who are the Family? What Family?"

"Let me see it," the Doctor coaxed. Martha took a step back and shook her head firmly, pressing her hand against her jeans. "I promise not to touch it," he said, "I just want to see it."

Reluctantly, Martha pulled out the intricately engraved fob watch and held it out for the Doctor to examine. He reached into his coat pocket and took out a pair of glasses that looked rather dashing on him, and peered closely at the watch in the dim green light emitting from the console. True to his word, he didn't try to touch it, which was just as well since Martha would have decked him if he had. This was _her_ Rose Tyler that she held in her hands, and she wouldn't let anyone take her away.

He did lean close enough to take a great big whiff of the watch though, and then cocked his head to the side like a dog listening for something in the distance. Rose moved closer and to Martha's astonishment copied the Doctor's actions, closing her eyes and frowning in concentration. Unnerved, Martha snatched the watch from under their noses and put back in her pocket. They both jerked back and shook their heads as if waking from a daze.

"Did you hear that?" asked Rose.

"Yes," the Doctor sounded distant. "That was…interesting. Very, very interesting."

"But what was it? It sounded so familiar…"

"I don't know. I've never heard anything like it before. Tell you what though, that howl at the end, _that_ was so…"

"Chilling?"

"Oh, freezing. Terrifying. Like freefalling into a neverending pit."

"Got much experience with that, have you?" Martha worked her way into their dazed back-and-forth, annoyed that she hadn't heard whatever they had.

"Yes, actually. Long story. Fun, though. Sort of. Well, thrilling anyway."

"Not exactly the words I would've used," muttered Rose.

"Sure it was," said the Doctor, throwing an arm around Rose's shoulders. "Remember what it felt like when the rocket started turning around? Sort of like, like, like, like…"

"Escaping a black hole?"

"That's it!"

There was a part of Martha that was intensely curious about the legend behind their banter, but Rose changed the subject before she could venture to ask.

"So…why hasn't the world ended?" Rose posed the question so casually she might as well have been asking what was for supper.

"I expect that it hasn't ended because this was supposed to happen this way."

"What d'you mean?"

"Well, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy, innit? Look at it this way: if you hadn't seen this watch right now, and if I never explained to you what the Chameleon Arch is or how to deal with the Family of Blood, then in the future you wouldn't be able to use the Arch to keep the Family from finding you. Of course, I would never explain what the Chameleon Arch is in the first place if it wasn't clear that you have to use it in the future. Even better, I never would have figured out that you needed to use the Arch if you hadn't told Martha about Satellite Five, which explains why she didn't know about it before; if she had, then you wouldn't have told her right now."

"So what you're saying is," Martha interjected crossly, "it's a good thing you didn't listen to me right from the off and get the hell out of here when I told you to."

The Doctor looked at Martha with a grin. "Pretty much, yeah."

Martha sighed in exasperation and rubbed her temples, mumbling under her breath about time traveling and headaches and too many freakin' secrets being kept from her by Rose. She eyed the switches on the console that would activate the message Rose had left behind, the one that looked like it had been made the same day they went to "old" New York.

"Did I tell you anything in advance, then?" Rose asked Martha as though reading her mind.

Rose, Martha observed, apparently understood that it wasn't necessary for the Doctor to tell her everything she needed to know right this second, since she wasn't asking him questions. No, she knew their time with Martha was limited.

It was somewhat intriguing to Martha that now that the Doctor and his genius alien brain had figured out what was really going on, it was obvious that the Doctor wasn't around at all in Martha's timeline, yet neither of them said anything about it. Perhaps they were happier living in denial. Perhaps Rose had lied when she'd said that she would want to know if she was going to lose a friend and there was nothing she could do to stop it. It pained Martha to think that either of them could have seen their separation coming in advance.

"Not really. I mean, you don't know exactly when it's going to happen, right? So you wouldn't know when to tell me anything."

"But if we were running from this Family, how did I have time to explain everything to you before the Chameleon Arch wiped my memories or whatever it does?"

Martha bit her tongue and forced her eyes to remain steady on Rose and not stray to the console screen. Rose seemed to accept her silence as a matter of course, and nodded to the Doctor.

"We should get going then, yeah? In case we alert the Family?"

"Oh, it's too late for that," remarked the Doctor blandly. "The TARDIS was quite careless bringing you here, I think, since we come here all the time for chips. But maybe that was the point."

He may as well have dumped ice cold water over Martha's head.

"What? What do you mean? Have they found us? Answer me!"

"Hard to say, really, but I doubt that my TARDIS has gone unnoticed."

Martha was so infuriated she couldn't speak. If it wouldn't create an irreversible paradox, she could _kill_ him right now, she was so angry.

Rose was doing a great job of not panicking, though.

"But Doctor, isn't that a bad thing?"

"It's terrible," the Doctor nodded emphatically. "Horrible. No good. Very bad. …Wait, hold on—"

"Doctor!"

"Right, sorry, but it's not our problem, Rose. It's Martha's now."

"But—but—but that's our _future_!"

"And our _future_," he mimicked Rose, "is in Martha's hands. No pressure, by the way."

"Right," said Martha faintly, feeling woozy. Wasn't she supposed to be in a state of frantic emergency right now?

The Doctor was pulling Rose out the TARDIS door, but looked over his shoulder at Martha when she called out to him.

"How—how am I supposed to do this?"

The Doctor hummed thoughtfully.

"Well… Out of curiosity, what did Rose say to you when she gave you that watch?" He covered Rose's ears with his hands, which obviously annoyed her although she made no effort to remove them.

Martha hesitated, but since the Doctor wouldn't be there… "She said—the last thing she said—I mean," she stomped her foot slightly and looked up at the high ceiling, frustrated at her inability to spit it out. "She told me she believed in me."

The Doctor grinned brilliantly, showing all his teeth, and took his hands away from Rose's head.

"There we go, then!"

Rose looked from the Doctor's insane grin to Martha, who had her hands in her jacket and was glaring at the Doctor's shining, dark eyes.

"I don't want to know," muttered Rose. She grabbed the Doctor's hand and pulled him outside.

When the door shut the behind them, the TARDIS felt cold and empty.

**ΘΣ … ΘΣ … ΘΣ**

The next five days were painfully normal.

Shortly after returning to school and her old group of friends, Akura had met Kitty Orman's half-brother, Isaac, who worked as a tour guide at a museum in Denver, which was only thirty minutes away from Lupus Nocens. Isaac was taking online classes at Brighton in the hopes of eventually becoming an astrophysicist; he spent much of his free time actively stargazing. Akura was deeply enamored with his boyish charm and optimistic fire, but Martha saw him as a threat.

Martha didn't meet him until the day after her talk with Rose and the Doctor.

"Martha," called Akura as she walked in the door, "I want you to meet someone!"

Isaac was extraordinarily plain. He was tall, thin, and sort of geeky-looking, with glasses, messy blonde hair, and a form-fitting t-shirt depicting a stick figure bashing its head into a keyboard.

Akura introduced him as just a friend, but Martha could tell that they wouldn't stay that way for long, judging mostly by the lingering looks they gave each other when they thought they could get away with it. Isaac was a decent enough fellow, but his mere existence drove Martha up the wall with irritation.

After all, Martha planned to open the watch in just over a week. Surely Rose would have no patience or time for someone like Isaac when she returned. Isaac, Martha thought, was the sort to enjoy the adventures of an ordinary life, with all the risks and thrills restricted therein, but would fall apart if forced to confront the enormity of the universe. Even if the man's character could withstand it, Martha didn't think Rose would want to have to look after more than one companion. And as childish as it sounded in her head, Martha was here first.

Besides, there was also Rose's message to consider. If the Doctor was right, and the Family had followed their TARDIS to Lupus Nocens, no one could be trusted. They could have killed anyone and used their body to get close to Akura. Martha had been in hiding long enough now that she considered herself nominally paranoid about everyone that showed even an inclination towards befriending Akura. _If you can, keep me from getting too close to anyone, just in case._

Isaac's rather abrupt appearance was exactly the sort of thing Martha needed to watch out for. It didn't help that she and Akura were attempting to rekindle a friendship that had faded because the damn TARDIS couldn't construct a better background story than one that was ridiculously close enough to the truth to corrupt the poor human woman's brain. Martha tentatively offered a slightly negative opinion of Isaac once the man had gone back home, but since her arguments were weak, Akura dismissed them.

So for four days Martha endured Akura's excessive nattering about Isaac's great hair, and sparkling eyes, and sense of adventure, and amazing outlook on the world. The only reason Martha didn't panic was because she knew that Akura was still recovering from whatever Argen and his friends had done to her, which was such a double-bladed consideration she hated herself for it. But even Martha could not initiate physical contact without earning at least a flinch. And although Akura still spent every night out with her friends, she always came home before midnight, sober, and Martha knew she didn't spend much, if any, time alone with Isaac.

Still, the date she and Rose had agreed to open the watch was approaching slowly and Martha's nerves were stretched taut with the stress of it; her body felt like a tightly-strung bow just waiting to release an unseen arrow into the shadows.

She blamed stress for the row she had with Akura on Friday morning in the front hallway, probably close enough to the door for passing neighbors to hear them. Akura had declared that she wanted to try dancing with Isaac at the _Wolf Den_ and it would be easier if Martha came along. Martha thought it was too soon, but Akura insisted that it was actually Doctor Marsch, her biweekly therapist, who had suggested the night out.

Martha didn't find the idea of sitting at the bar watching Akura dance with Isaac and probably a bunch of strangers very thrilling, and she didn't hesitate to say as much.

"Why?" Akura demanded. "I mean, don't you want to see me get better?"

That was a low blow and Akura seemed to realize this, for she averted her eyes from Martha's as soon as she said it. Martha took a moment to reply without saying something she'd regret.

"I don't think gyrating between Isaac Orman and a room full of hot and sweaty strangers is the way to do that." Okay, so the moment didn't last quite long enough, but she'd tried.

Akura clenched her jaw stubbornly, looking so much like Rose that Martha felt a sharp pang in the vicinity of her chest.

"I handled it just fine right after my detox, remember? What's so different now?"

The woman had a point, and Martha wasn't sure how to argue against it.

"It…it's a Friday," she said weakly. "It wasn't as busy then as it will be tonight."

Akura stared. Her eyes screamed, "Bullshit!" but instead of saying that aloud she sighed. "Why don't you like Isaac, Martha?" At Martha's surprise, she laughed bitterly. "Don't think I haven't noticed. I pay a lot more attention than you think I do."

Martha crossed her arms and replied evenly, "I don't trust him."

"You don't trust anyone."

"I trust you."

"No, you don't." Akura's eyes dared her to challenge the statement, and Martha naively took the bait.

"Yes, I do! If I didn't, d'you think I'd ever let you out of my sight? D'you think I'd let you go out every night with your friends? I don't trust them, but I trust you to do the right thing."

"Then why don't you want me to go to the _Den_ tonight? Why didn't you get me Rose Tyler's number like I asked you to? Why are you always so worried about me? Why can't you just let me try to be happy with someone?"

Martha was thrown by Akura saying Rose's name so casually, so it took a second for her to respond. She'd been foolish to think that Akura would forget that incident so easily, but Martha had not heard her mention it since it happened.

"I don't want you to go to the _Den_ because it's dangerous, Rose." Martha froze. _Shit_. "…Tyler had a family emergency to get to before she could give me her number and I forgot to tell you." She peered at Akura, who hadn't seemed to register anything amiss after Martha's recovery. She plowed on, "And I just think you should give these things time. Everybody has little bit of good and bad in them, and I don't want the bad to ever take advantage of you."

Akura narrowed her eyes. Martha saw something indefinable flash across them, something that made her stomach swoop oddly. She wondered for the first time just how similar this human really was to Rose, if she would catch her accidental slip—the first she'd had in these three months—and make the implausible connection. Akura opened her mouth but apparently changed her mind at the last second, because she shut it again and lunged forward to encompass Martha in a warm embrace.

When the other woman pulled back, Martha hoped she looked as confused as she felt, because her voice wasn't working. Akura smiled and Martha's heart stuttered.

"Thank you for caring," she said softly. With that, she spun on her heel and marched out the door, past a gawking little girl with a balloon, leaving Martha staring dumbly after her.

Hadn't they just been fighting? What the bleeding hell _was_ that?

**ΘΣ … ΘΣ … ΘΣ**

With that morning, Martha had a really bad feeling about the rest of the day. She was tense and distracted through all of her classes, which she only went to in order to keep herself occupied, which wasn't working today. She saw Akura at lunch and incessantly roved her gaze over the masses, looking for potential threats. Twice she had to stop herself from marching over to their little group and punching the lights out of anyone that breached an imaginary three-foot bubble around Akura, although in both cases it had been Akura willingly reaching out to someone.

The whole thing had Martha severely frazzled.

That afternoon, Martha persuaded Akura to play a first-person shooter with her, during which Akura remarked that she had a friend that knew how to win without shooting anything. However, when Martha asked her to specify who, Akura didn't know.

Martha cooked the both of them a simple peppercorn steak because Akura would probably have burnt down the building if allowed. During the meal, Akura convinced Martha to go to the _Wolf Den_. How that happened, Martha wasn't entirely sure.

"It'll just be me, you, and Isaac, you know. No one else wanted to come; they're having a party in one of the frat houses tonight."

"Were you invited?"

"Yeah."

"And you declined?"

"Of course."

They finished the rest of the meal in silence. Since there weren't many dishes to clean up, they worked together by hand; Martha washed and Akura toweled them dry and put them away. It was soothing the way they never needed to say anything, they just did it. They worked well together.

When the last fork was tucked away in its drawer, Akura turned to Martha and smiled.

"Well, it's getting near dark now, we should get ready."

She left the kitchen and for the second time that day Martha stared after her in shock.

Martha did believe that she had just been quite effectively manipulated.

Sighing, Martha went to her bedroom to change out of her comfortable sweats and into a long-sleeved blouse and jeans. She made a little effort with her hair, taking it down so it hung straight, which she thought made her look prettier. A spritz of perfume and a bit of lip gloss later, and she was ready several minutes before Akura.

Martha waited at the end of the hallway near the door, checking her pockets to make sure she had everything. She slipped on a jacket and some gloves, wrapped a checkered black and gray scarf around her neck, and paced back and forth the short distance from the door to the hall. Her nerves had been tested all day long, and now she felt like she would snap with any sudden movements. She sighed again and pulled out the fob watch, staring at it intently.

Feeling stupid, she brought the watch close to her face and sniffed. Nothing. Not even a hint of metal. Tilting her head to one side so her ear was facing it, she listened intently.

It was a testament to how much she was straining her ears that the sound of Akura yelping indignantly made her jump and spin around just in time to catch Akura as she fell face-first. The watch fell to the ground on top of a separation of carpet that stuck up just enough, evidently, to trip eager young women. Blushing furiously, Akura leaned on Martha to straighten herself up. When she started to examine the watch that had fallen from Martha's grasp, however, Martha quickly pretended to be slightly off balance, pulling Akura away from the object. Unfortunately, she moved a bit _too_ quickly and would have fallen over herself if Akura hadn't grabbed her arm and pulled her close. They laughed.

The door burst open and Martha instinctively moved in front of Akura.

"What's going on? Akura, are you okay?"

It was Isaac, who was a bit of breath. Martha and Akura stared at him. He flushed.

"I—I heard something."

Martha reluctantly stepped away from Akura.

"Just Akura being clumsy," she said. Akura swatted her shoulder.

"Shut up."

"Um, these are for you." Isaac held out two lilacs and Akura took them, kissing Isaac on the cheek. Martha, annoyed, couldn't tell if her blush was from her earlier embarrassment, their brief laughter, or sudden bashfulness in the face of Isaac's own shy charm.

"Thank you, Isaac. C'mon, let's go put these in water real quick. Make youself comfortable, Isaac." Akura dragged Martha into the kitchen, where they shared a giggle as they simply put the lilacs into a cup of water and set it aside.

Akura was dressed similarly to Martha, warm but stylish clothes that fit her well and accentuated her figure just right. She didn't have a scarf, but she did wear an adorable beanie over her glossy, nearly black curls.

When they left the apartment with Isaac, Martha felt lighter than she had before, but there was still a niggling worry in the back of her mind that weighed her down.


	21. A Sun Will Burn, Part II

**This took a lot longer than I thought it would, but that's life. Otherwise, I personally consider this chapter a masterpiece. No conceit intended. Extra points to readers who figure out the complete pattern.**

**As a side note, if anyone has any suggestions on how to improve last chapter, I'd appreciate it because no matter how much I kept tweaking it, parts of it never felt right.**

**Also, shout-out to **_**rileylikescheese**_**—apparently I was wrong about when I was going update, sorry. The end was surprisingly difficult. Made it longer to make up for the delay ;) Still looking forward to seeing your work!**

**WARNING: some foul language, like usual, and there are one or two scenes here that get graphic in a really bloody, gory way that they'd never show on BBCA.**

* * *

**Episode 10**

**A Sun Will Burn, Part II**

"…_and we went to this beach, right, no people, no buildings, just this beach, like, a thousand miles across! And something happened—something to do with the sun, I don't know—but the sea had just frozen. Like, in a split second in the middle of a storm, right, waves and foam, just frozen. All the way out to the horizon._

"_Midnight, right, we walk underneath these waves a hundred feet tall, made of ice!"_

**ΘΣ … ΘΣ … ΘΣ**

By this point, Martha had come to accept that there were infinite wonders in this universe, things that she could never imagine and would never believe without seeing it; but here, there was no wonder: it was freezing, an empty kind of freezing that felt like it had always been frozen and would stay frozen forever. Steam that looked almost solid curled from Martha's lips as she panted in the cold darkness of an alley filled with broken glass. Heat and adrenaline curled in her blood, fighting or trying to fight the late autumn air. She crouched underneath a bunch of heavy, stinking black trash bags and tried to keep her pounding heart within the confines of her chest.

The creature that had been pursuing Martha leapt through the broken window that Martha had busted just moments before. It paused there and sniffed the ground, snarling. As it picked up Martha's scent and moved into the light of the full moon, Martha took a moment to appreciate the creature's beauty.

If Martha were forced to call it anything, she'd say that it was a wolf, but that was not quite accurate. Nor could it be called a werewolf, because it didn't look anything like fantasy werewolves or the pictures of the real thing which she had seen in the TARDIS library, viewed late at night when she was bored and couldn't sleep and Rose had been kind enough to point out the interesting stuff.

It was larger than an ordinary wolf, its head nearly reaching Martha's even on all fours, and it didn't stand on its hind legs like she thought a werewolf would. It more resembled a panther in the slinking grace with which it stalked towards the pile of trash bags under which Martha was hiding, but the long snout and sharp, pointed ears that twitched at every sound were distinctively canine. Its short, shaggy fur was not merely black; it seemed to suck all light into it. Sleek muscles rippled with power underneath the fur, somehow tense with explosive energy and simultaneously relaxed and lazy with a confidence that sneered at weak human flesh.

The eyes, Martha thought, were the creature's most striking features. They were frighteningly intelligent and piercing, warm brown with shining gold flecks that radiated a nearly imperceptible aura of ethereal power. The worst thing, though, was the lack of recognition in them as the creature finally decided that yes, its prey was hiding beneath those stinking trash bags, and yes, that was a very pitiful wall of protection easily brushed aside by glistening, jagged fangs and deadly claws.

Trapped, Martha stood quickly so as to be able to look the creature in the eye. Hot breath blew gently over her face, bringing with it a feeling of fierce protectiveness that wouldn't make sense in this situation without the foreknowledge that Martha had been granted. Currently, however, the creature's eyes gleamed in predatory triumph as it growled menacingly and bunched its muscles, preparing to strike. There seemed to be nothing familiar in these eyes.

Martha took a deep breath and braced herself, a sweet thrill singing in her bones from the sensation of spinning out of control.

**Less than an hour later…**

Rose was glad that her jacket, pilfered from the wardrobe room over a year ago, regulated a separate atmosphere around her torso, or she'd be freezing. Her hands and nose were cold, though, and the air in her lungs felt frozen. She was kind of glad of that. Given what she was doing, it was only right that some of the cold inside was being reflected outside.

She hated how poetic she had become.

Martha was gazing around them in awe, still wearing the gloves she had started the night with, and even with circumstances as they were right now, Rose couldn't help but treasure Martha's amazement. The universe was full of places like this, and Rose now understood why the Doctor had taken such manic enjoyment out of sharing them. As she watched, Martha reached out to touch a wave, only to gasp in startlement to feel how cold it was even through her glove. Rose felt a grin tugging at the corners of her lips unwittingly; she wondered if Martha had thought the waves were made of something else. Glass, perhaps. They did look like huge glass walls or sculptures.

Martha looked away from the wave she was touching to catch Rose's eye. She wasn't quite smiling—Rose didn't think she would be able to for a while yet—but her eyes sparkled adorably. Rose's heart swelled with a sharp, bright, floating feeling she couldn't label. With it came hope. If Rose had a choice, if the universe let her have a say, if anything she did ever influenced anything like she wanted it to, Martha would always have that look in her eye.

But she still remembered how they'd looked just an hour ago, sparkling with idiotic conviction (in what, Rose still wasn't sure), and defiance, and sheer terror, as Rose prepared to kill her.

The burning stars and the ghostly aurora dancing in the midnight sky twinkled mockingly over the frozen waves of Woman Wept, but the world kept turning in spite of them.

**More than four hours earlier…**

If she had had more time to become attuned to her human body, she would have found the apartment unreasonably cold. As it was, she was shivering for another reason—excitement.

"Well done, Daughter of Mine," praised the Mother of their Family, the hand of her host touching the shoulder of the younger host of her Daughter.

Around them, the Son and the Father of their Family were searching for the key to the feast that would sustain them for eternity. The material trappings of human existence were ripped away and torn apart in the hopes of unearthing the item that would save them. It was only a matter of time before they had it, so there was no need for the foolish fear she saw in her Children's eyes.

Daughter nodded solemnly and led her Brother to the Empty One's resting place. The information she had imparted to the Family had been invaluable.

"You are certain that we should not have attacked the Doctor when we smelled him?"

Mother turned to face the Father of their Family, her Husband. His host was dark-skinned, with sharp beady eyes that had made her nod with approval when she first saw them.

"The Doctor does not have the bond with time that Rose Tyler does."

"Their TARDIS—"

"Is impenetrable."

"The Doctor would have been an easier catch, and enough to live forever."

Mother glared at him with all the force her host could muster. He took a step back. She sniffed in satisfaction.

"I will have nothing less than the universe for Babe of Mine. We are not desperate, Husband of Mine. We have two Earth days to finish our hunt. There is no need to settle for immortality when we can have so much more than that."

Father inclined his head.

"I meant no disrespect, Wife of Mine. Of course Babe of Mine shall have all the amenities we may offer. But would not a defenseless Rose Tyler suffice as well as the one with power?"

Mother extended the fingernails of her host into vicious claws and tapped them carefully against the throat of her Husband. It would take almost no force at all to tear him to shreds. Father did not move, showing wisdom.

"Do not get ahead of yourself, Husband of Mine. We are not yet able to disobey the laws of time. We must have the Rose Tyler we have hunted, and no other, and no Doctor, and no TARDIS, until then."

"Mother of Mine," said the voice of the Son's host. Mother retracted her claws and turned to face him. "It is not here."

Her nostrils flared.

"Very well. Daughter of Mine," she looked down at the little one, "where did Martha Jones and the Empty One go?"

"_The Wolf Den_, Mother of Mine."

"Then we shall take the watch from Martha Jones by force."

…

Akura was glad that she had managed to arrange things just right. She had wanted to go out with Isaac badly, but she couldn't do it alone. Her breath quickened at just the thought of being among a wild press of bodies without Martha there to protect her. Going somewhere more private with Isaac, alone, would be infinitely worse, and Martha would never allow it; Akura had sworn to herself that she would never lie to Martha about anything ever again.

"And no one else we know will be here, right?"

Akura smiled softly. She was aware of Martha's efforts to track down Argen and his friends, and that somehow everything had fallen apart for them during her short but painful, traumatizing detox, and so she knew that Martha was only asking out of nervous alertness and not distrust.

"Yes, Martha. You, me, Isaac, and a roomful of strangers."

Martha huffed, as though the statement brought little comfort. However, Akura was glad to see that her shoulders were not as hunched, and some lines of tension had faded. It seemed that ever since they had moved from London her friend had seemed—when she had been around to notice, Akura admitted sadly to herself—bogged down by the weight of the world. She had to convince herself that it was not her fault or the guilt from her selfishness would consume her.

It was December 13th and the air was frigid in Colorado, and the light of the rising full moon was bright and utterly cold. Inside the _Den_, however, the air was steamy, almost heady with the scent of sweat and alcohol and barbecue; the _Den_ opened early on Fridays as more of a bar than a club, and the owner had this weird thing where he went outside and cooked barbecue before up and coming DJs threw their mixes together for a night of pure revelry for 18+, which was exactly what Akura needed right now.

Luckily, the line was short, and the cover charge cheap. The club was already electric with life and music when they arrived, pounding bass lines and heavy drums rattling Akura's skull and stretching her lips into an involuntary grin. Isaac and Martha each ordered a shot of something alcoholic; Akura tried not to pay attention lest she be tempted to have more than she could handle right now. She wanted live through this night completely sober. That was the challenge she had set for herself. Besides, she was the designated driver and didn't want to have to take a cab for just a few blocks across town.

Nervous energy raced up and down her spine and she tugged on Isaac's hand impatiently, missing a joke he'd muttered to Martha in her eagerness to jump off the cliff. It was the anticipation that Akura had hated more than anything today. Martha had smiled and chuckled softly at Isaac's joke, distracting Akura briefly from her anxiety, which was the only reason she knew that Isaac had even spoken, but finally Isaac acquiesced to her tugs and gingerly followed her to the dance floor.

Martha hesitated, but the dance the floor was so crowded that Akura knew her friend would not be able to see very clearly from the bar and would not want to risk losing sight of her. True to form, Martha moved stiffly behind Isaac as Akura plunged into the heart of the crowd.

It was terrifying in the most thrilling way. The air was musky and hot and utterly suffocating. She felt like there was cellophane stretched tight around her face, her limbs were tied, and she was being manhandled towards the ocean. Her heart was beating erratically, painfully hard against her ribs with a roaring rush of blood and adrenaline that muffled the emphatic beat of the nameless club hit that pounded under her feet and over her head. The fear that erupted behind her tongue was solid and implacable, a scream that was too shrill to escape. A blanket of bright, electrifying intensity seemed to have seized her skin and frozen it rock hard and slick. Foreign bodies pressed in from all directions like the walls of the club were closing in to crush her out of existence.

And she was _happy_ because of it. This fear, this feeling of absolute terror, made her feel more alive than anything had since she had called Martha after the night of her nearly fatal mistake. It was far, far better than the numbness that had paralyzed her emotions and crippled her soul for what seemed like months.

Akura threw her head back and laughed exultantly against the drowning presence of her fear.

Martha, caught up in the wildness of Akura's laughter and the intense gyration of the crowd, finally let go and danced in earnest at Akura's back. To their side, Isaac pressed close to prevent the other dancers from sweeping him away, and Akura felt like kicking and screaming to get away from him, to yell at him not to touch her because her skin was crawling, but instead she surrendered to the basic primal _feel_ of the fear, falling willingly into Martha's protective embrace.

They stopped for a brief rest and drinks about forty minutes later, Isaac and Martha working together to keep everyone else from touching Akura on their way to the bar. Akura indulged in a non-alcoholic drink, and tried to catch her breath. It was impossible. She was still caught in a trance of intense emotion.

That was when all hell broke loose.

"There will be silence! All of you!"

A large man with darker skin than Martha's had burst into the bar and seized control of the microphone ordinarily used for karaoke nights. He held a bizarre gun-like thing in his other hand and aimed it at the DJ, who had exclaimed, "What the hell is this?"

"Turn it off! _Now!_"

Hastily, the DJ shut off the music. Deafening silence fell over the bar. The dancers were a lump of flesh stuck together staring in awe. Near the man, a woman shrieked. A burst of green light escaped the intruder's weapon, striking the woman and dissolving her where she stood.

Like a switch had been flipped, everyone in the club made for the door. There were a few bright flashes of light, more screams, and then three more figures emerged from the doorway, pushing the crowd back inside.

Akura felt something inside her recoil in disgust and fear, the distinctly _un_-thrilling kind that reduced her vision to one tiny speck of light in the center of a massive darkness. It was Argen. And Melissa. And a little girl with a fistful of ribbons attached to brightly-colored balloons. They were all holding those strange-looking guns.

The four of them herded everyone onto the dance floor. Filing in after them were—and Akura could hardly believe her eyes—mannequins from shop windows all down the street, and other things, too. Meshes of car parts and traffic lights and sign posts formed grotesque creatures of all sizes. Dogs, cats, people, snakes, birds; there were dozens of them, whirring and clicking mechanically, throwing aside tables and chairs with inhuman strength to make more room. They and the mannequins lined up in rows behind the people with guns, an army of mish-mashed metal and plastic.

Akura's arm was grabbed roughly and she was dragged across the dance floor towards the back; Martha, Akura thought dimly as she stared unblinkingly at Argen. Martha was trying to put most of the crowd between them and the gunmen.

"We asked for silence!" The first man roared, and the last of the whimpers and screams died away into the trembling, cowering mass of humans gathered on the floor. "Now then. We have a few questions for Ms. Martha Jones."

Akura snapped her gaze from Argen to Martha, who swallowed hard.

"Whatever happens," Martha whispered, "don't trust anything they say."

"What the hell is going on?" Isaac, who had followed them, hissed.

"Jones!"

Martha gently pulled herself from Akura's disbelieving grip and moved away from the group. "Here," she said quietly, hands raised to shoulder level to show herself unarmed.

"Bad Wolf is hiding in a watch. Her body is vulnerable. We will find and kill that body if you don't give us the watch."

Akura saw Isaac flinch, but she was utterly confused. And scared shitless.

"Alright," said Martha. Her voice barely shook. "Just let me pull it out."

She moved her hand to one of her pockets, but Argen moved before she could take out anything, grabbing a drunk man from the crowd and holding a gun at his temple. The man started to put up a fight until Martha caught his eye.

"If you try to open it," said Melissa, "Son of Mine will kill this man. And we will keep killing and killing until you give us what we want."

"Why?" asked Martha, obviously trying to stall. "What do you want with so much power? What's the point? Surely you can find more food somewhere else."

Argen killed the man he was holding. Akura didn't even see him fire; she'd blinked and the man was gone. She along with several others gasped in horror. She shrank back, feeling incredibly small and vulnerable as Argen captured another hostage. Everyone around Akura shifted uneasily.

"You didn't have to do that!"

Martha quickly reached into her pocket. Then she froze, eyes wide. She grasped at her other pockets, frantic.

"I don't—" she was bewildered, "—I don't have it."

Argen shot his captive and reached for another one. There were brief screams but the larger black man silenced them with a glare.

"_Wait!_"

"Mother of Mine," said the little girl, "perhaps the Empty One has it."

Melissa nodded in agreement.

"Yes, Daughter of Mine, she must. Tell us, Martha Jones, where is Bad Wolf's human body? Where is Rose Tyler?"

Akura bit her lip to keep from exclaiming aloud her recognition of the name.

"Not here," said Martha promptly. "She was, but she had to leave early. The crowd was too much for her."

Akura's eyes involuntarily went back to Argen, whose face was stony as he held a gun to a young woman's head. His dark eyes and messy brown hair seemed utterly alien to her now. If she hadn't had his features burned into her memory, she might not have even thought it was him. And what the hell was Melissa doing going along with this? How had they gathered such a...an _ugly_ army? What were they planning to do with it?

"You are lying," said the man at Melissa's side. "We can smell her, and we can smell the watch." He sniffed deeply as if to make his point. "Tell us where she is, or we will kill everyone in this room."

Martha's eyes were wide and frightened, Akura saw, though she only saw the other woman's profile from the side. Akura looked around and realized that Isaac had drifted further into the shadows, hands shaking uncontrollably. She felt a brief stab of contempt for him.

"She's not here," whispered Martha.

Argen promptly shot his captive and then replaced the young woman with another one.

Martha averted her gaze, her expression twisted in pain, and Akura's heart cracked.

"Stop it!"

Akura hadn't planned to speak. She still didn't know what was going on, or what she could possibly do about it. But there was a part of her, she realized after she had attracted the attention of everyone in the bar, that couldn't stand to see that look on Martha's face, and another part of her that couldn't just stand there and watch people die.

The crowd parted before Akura, a straight line to Argen, Melissa, the little girl, and the other man. Martha moved quickly to shield Akura from view, but it was too late. The dark-skinned man Akura didn't recognize darted forward with surprising quickness and wrapped an arm around Martha's neck, pointing the gun at her head. Akura saw Argen smirking cruelly.

The crowd shifted anxiously, but subtle movements from the army lined up behind Argen and Melissa caused them to settle down with a soft murmur.

"She's your friend, isn't she?" said Melissa gesturing to the helpless Martha. "Doesn't this scare you enough to give us that watch?"

"I don't know what you mean!"

"Use him!" the little girl cried, pointing to Akura's right. "Martha Jones and the Empty One were talking about him. Him and Akura Kraft, Rose Tyler's human alter ego."

Akura flinched away as Argen threw his captive back into the crowd and stalked forward through the aisle they had created to wrestle briefly with—Isaac, Akura saw, with growing dread. Argen pulled Isaac to the front of the room with surprising strength, punching him hard enough in the jaw to send him sprawling. Argen left him on the floor, but he and Melissa both pointed guns at him.

Akura didn't even have time to protest.

"Have you enjoyed it, Rose?" said Argen. Akura flinched at the sound of his voice, flashing back to the cause of her night terrors. His expression was hard. "Being human? Has it taught you wonderful things? Brought you—pleasure?" His lips twisted cruelly when she flinched. "Are you better, richer, wiser? If it has done you any good, then let's see you answer this: which one of them do you want us to kill? Your friend—or your lover? Your choice."

"Argen—" she cut herself off. Even if this really was Argen…what on earth could she say?

Akura breathed harshly, unable to understand anything of the world anymore. It was all gibberish, they were all speaking nonsense, and the world was twisting in on itself around her, shimmering and fading in and out of existence. There was a tightness in her chest and a prickling pain in her eyes and sweat still dripped down her back from the heady heat of the dancers who weren't dancing around her. Was she about to faint? She felt worse than when she had nearly overdosed on god knew what.

At that moment, the shrill, keening whine of police sirens pierced the tense silence.

Chaos erupted around her. Several dozen people in the bar, all in various stages of sobriety and none in any stage of rationality, lunged for the exit, knocking over the human-like intruders with guns and trampling into the army behind them.

The army was just that, though: a large group of soldiers. The mannequins pressed against the crowd and shoved a few them hard enough into walls and tables and floors to crack skulls. The bizarre machines interspersed between the mannequins whirred and buzzed and spun, contraptions like limbs sparking and penetrating the rush of people aiming for the door.

It was the metal things that were the worst, Akura soon realized as she emptied the contents of her stomach onto the dance floor. They had blades, saws, needles, spears, drills and other sharp, spinning things that flashed in the multicolored, pulsing light of the dance floor and sliced effortlessly into human flesh, carving bone and splattering blood and spewing guts across the bar, painting the walls red. Akura fell to her knees next to a pool of vomit, sobbing incoherently as people she didn't know, and possibly some that she did, died horrible, painful deaths fit only for a horror movie with more gore than plot.

The screams and the buzzing whirs of the killer robots sang sharply in her ears, filling them with incessant noise that burrowed deep enough into her brain to drive her mad. The smell of old pennies, dirty bathrooms, and regurgitated food and alcohol overwhelmed the earlier smell of sweat and alcohol and barbecue. Someone next to her lost a hand with a piercing cry, hot red liquid spurting free of the stump and slashing Akura across the face—accusingly.

This was her fault.

Akura retched again.

Gunfire soon joined the cacophony of sounds. Someone with red skin and hair and clothes appeared out of the pandemonium and yelled something incomprehensible. Akura shook her head in denial, disbelief, dismay, defeat.

A dark red hand yanked on her arm, pulling her to her feet. Akura flinched at the skin on skin contact. Someone howled in frustration. Someone howled in fear. Someone howled in pain.

The world twisted in on iself again. The moon and the stars and the night sky blurred together into a cold lump like that gray-brown slimy _thing_ she slipped on, squished, the white things that crunched, stuck into her hands and knees, and she would have crashed face-first into the vomit, offal and blood-stained sidewalk outside the _Den_, but something warm and solid steadied her.

The cold pierced the haze that filled her head, cleared it enough to get her feet moving on their own. It also seemed to muffle the screams, or maybe they had really faded to silence. The silence was worse.

The mannequin-robot army was spilling out onto the streets of Lupus Nocens and attacking more than just those who had been in the _Den_. Akura was shuffled right past a young man no more than sixteen years old who screamed as a mannequin armed with a huge knife methodically pushed him to the ground and proceeded to saw off his head slowly enough that he was still screaming several seconds after the beheading began.

"NO!"

The noise was a shot in the dark, the first sound to penetrate Akura's numb coldness, and it was her own voice crying. She tried to run to the boy, but was stopped by a firm arm around her waist. Akura cringed and turned wildly to face Martha, whose eyes were haunted and sad and dark in her blood-stained face.

"LET ME GO!" Akura shrieked and struggled against Martha. Isaac, from apparently thin air, stepped between them and the mannequin and the boy, blocking her view of the thick, dark liquid spurting straight into the air, a parody of a fountain coating the metal blade, the metal head, the metal torso, the...

"Let it go, Akura," soothed Isaac.

"You can't do anything," said Martha.

Akura pushed at Martha's arm, realizing that she was shaking with violent sobs only when she failed to escape the other woman's firm grip. She clutched at the arm like a life raft instead.

"We have to keep running."

"They can have me!" Akura sobbed. "Let them have me, just make it stop!"

"If they have you, the entire world will suffer this," said Martha. She looked sick in the pale moonlight. "The galaxy after that, the whole universe after that. I have to keep you safe."

And Akura was pulled along into the night, shrieking and sobbing.

Sometime later, Isaac scouted ahead and found a car abandoned in the street, keys in the ignition, headlights on, no trace of its owner anywhere nearby. Akura tried to protest that someone else needed it more, but was overruled.

The army had stopped pursuing innocent citizens, but they crawled all over and across the streets, blood-slicked and grotesque. Akura found it hard to believe, looking at the car's clock, that it had been barely more than an hour since she and Martha had left their apartment for a night of dancing.

She scoffed inwardly. _Dancing_. Who the fuck cared about dancing _now_? The goddamn world was ending.

There were other cars, of course, civilian ones speeding out of town, robot-controlled ones trying to run them off the road; not to kill, just to make them stay in Lupus Nocens. Isaac sped straight through an intersection where a dismantled robot-car had T-boned a now-abandoned normal car. Akura couldn't see any bodies in the wreckage.

They drove for nearly ten minutes, avoiding the usual routes where traffic was starting to get backed up. Helicopters were flying overhead now, spotlights eyeing the destruction, loud disembodied voices reassuring the stranded, the wounded, the panicking and violent and suicidal. There were looters, too, taking advantage of the chaos, and in between trying to round up killer robots the police tried to catch them as well, failing spectacularly at both as a result. Sirens and screams filled the night. Here and there, a fire burned, sparks erupted from torn power lines, darkness shrouded a road that had once been brightly lit, busted cars had been left behind, elderly and the slow and injured had been left behind…

Akura swallowed and looked away lest she leap out the window to help them. That was the only thing she could think to do in the wake of the chilling terrors behind her.

Isaac parked at the outskirts of town and Akura roughly shook off his helping hand as she exited the vehicle and surveyed their hiding place. It was an ancient, abandoned ranch, with a boarded-up barn and a field of overgrown weeds and a copse of trees shielding the path leading to it from the sight of the main road; it was doubtful many people could find it in broad daylight, let alone in the middle of the night with a war waging.

Akura hunched her shoulders and led the way to the barn, which she figured would be easier to break into than the ranch house. There was a tense pause behind her before Martha and Isaac followed. She wondered what they looked like, blood-stained and tear-stained and covered in grime and sweat, fleeing in the darkness like the cowards they were.

"Used to come here as a kid," Isaac grunted as he shifted aside a board in the side of the barn.

A narrow opening was revealed and they slipped into the pitch blackness. Isaac lit a match and a long stick wrapped with oil-soaked cloth burst aflame. He led the way to a big pile of straw and sat down on a wooden block, gesturing for Martha and Akura to get comfortable.

Martha took the torch from him and leaned against the door to a horse's stall. Akura plopped clumsily into the hay. Their breaths plumed before their faces, puffs of steam curling like smoke in a mockery of their burning innocence.

Silence descended, thick and choking, and seemed to last forever.

Akura closed her eyes. If she concentrated, she thought she could still hear the screams, though they were probably a safe distance away from the violence, if it was still happening.

Martha watched Akura. A deep well of self-loathing churned in an otherwise empty space behind her stomach.

Isaac clenched one hand into a fist and bowed his head, shivering as the cold became more pronounced. He let his mind drift and settle on a golden light that called his attention but did nothing once he was just sitting and staring at it.

The world was a rock, they all thought. A speck of dust consumed by the vacuum of space, twisting and twisted and twisting.

**ΘΣ … ΘΣ … ΘΣ**

"_I can feel it—the turn of the Earth. The ground beneath our feet is spinning at a thousand miles an hour, and the entire planet is hurtling around the sun at sixty-seven thousand miles an hour, and I can feel it. We're falling through space, you and me. Clinging to the skin of this tiny little world, and if we let go…_

"_That's who I am. Now, forget me, Rose Tyler. Go home."_

**ΘΣ … ΘΣ … ΘΣ**

**More than an hour later…**

Martha wasn't going to die. She had made a home in the TARDIS and it couldn't, wouldn't be taken from her.

"Wait," said Martha softly, heart in her throat.

The demonic wolf-like creature paused and lifted its lips, baring its teeth, but was apparently curious enough about Martha's last words not to attack immediately. Of course, it had time to spare, Martha thought hysterically, since there was nowhere she could run and certainly no one to help her. Then she scolded herself for thinking that way, for doubting her own faith in the future. Things had to turn out a certain way, she knew, and it was this belief that gave her the strength to speak.

"I never meant to hurt you." Martha had to struggle mightily to keep her voice from shaking; she didn't want the creature to think she was wavering in her conviction, because she wasn't; it was just that the enormity of this moment was rather overwhelming. "And when all this is over you're going to hate yourself for this, and I'm going to be the one to pick up the pieces. So I need you to just listen to me."

The creature's intelligent gaze settled heavily on her own, and Martha felt like her soul was being judged. Somewhat encouraged, she kept talking.

"I am not a threat to you, but others are. They want to take your power and use it to hurt other people, across time and space and maybe even universes. I can help you stop them. But to do that, you have to trust me. I'm going to do something that you probably won't agree with right now, but I…" _Dammit_, her breath caught in her throat, thick with fear, and love, and need. "I need you _back_, Rose."

The creature growled loudly, angrily. Martha clenched her jaw and steeled her entire body against flinching. The creature snapped its jaws less than inch from Martha's face, but Martha forced herself not to move, though her entire body quivered. She could not waver, she repeated to herself over and over.

A low thunder began to rumble in her head, a deep vibration penetrating her thoughts with no words, but impressions that Martha's mind managed to translate roughly into words.

_I will not be imprisoned._

"I—I know," Martha managed shakily. "But what you don't realize is that your wildness, your freedom, is what imprisons you now. I aim to set you free from that."

It snapped again, and this time Martha felt a hot, wet nose against her cheek.

_Rose Tyler is a hero. I am not a hero. I cannot be._

"Why?"

_Because I do not care. No one can take my power from me. Even if the world is destroyed, I will live on. And if I consume your strength, I will be avenged. These are not the thoughts of a hero._

Martha would have happily agreed if she didn't know what this creature could become.

"You can change, though. You _can_ care, and what kind of life is one lived completely alone, anyway? I am sorry for what I did to you, for releasing you into a world where you weren't welcome, for trying to force you to be something you didn't want to be. I made a mistake, I can see that now."

The wolf growled and Martha faltered briefly, but then kept going, her determination more inexorable than an oncoming storm.

"Rose Tyler is more than a hero," she said, and as she spoke her voice grew stronger. "She is compassionate, generous, merciful, and kind. But she is also fierce and protective. She is clever, relentless, passionate, and so, so brave."

_She would sacrifice herself for you._ The impression of these words seemed to vibrate in Martha's skull. In contrast to the cold December air, she felt as if the warmth she was feeling would choke her, but she nodded.

"Yes, she would. But it's more than that, don't you see? It's not that she would sacrifice herself so much as it is that she can't just _stand there_ and watch people die."

_So she ran away like a pup with her tail between her legs. __**Weak**__._

"Don't you dare say that," Martha snapped. The creature blinked, taken aback. It was probably madness, standing up to it like this. "Rose was not weak. She fought the Family with the only tools she had, and if that meant that she needed to hide, and leave her body vulnerable, to make sure that the Family would _die_, then of course she was going to do it."

_But she failed._

"Because of YOU!"

Martha's words echoed down the alley. The wolf growled a deep, rumbling growl in response, but Martha ignored it.

"Rose can help you. She can make you stronger, she can give you the power you're missing. Don't you sense that? Can't you feel it? An emptiness? Half of you is missing, and I'm the only one that can bring her back. Rose isn't just a hero, she's you, too. And you're her."

The creature breathed heavily in the falling silence. Martha stared it down.

Then, without warning, the creature's eyes flashed gold and it reared back to deliver a fatal blow.

**Less than an hour later…**

Martha flinched from the memory and told herself that they were almost home. In fact, the TARDIS was just behind her, parked on the ice in the shadow of a massive wave. In a few minutes, she would pound some sort of heartfelt confession of guilt and sorrow and grief from Rose, and then she could finally go to bed.

She really wanted to go to bed.

It was close to midnight, she thought, or at least it was on the planet they had just left behind. It felt much later. Or earlier. Or later than earlier. Martha's nerves were utterly fried. She was numb, and not just from the cold. Splashes of blood and echoes of screams drifted like ghosts across her senses and she tried to ignore them.

She wondered if there was a special therapist somewhere in the universe for companions who traveled in the TARDIS. After this three-month nightmare, she thought she'd need one for the rest of her life to get back to some semblance of normal.

Meh. Normal was different for everyone. Perhaps her normal was…_this_.

Martha caught Rose's gaze and held it for a moment. What she saw there was not frightening, exactly, or maybe it would have been before tonight, but now it was hugely comforting. There was a hot, boiling rage frothing under Rose's otherwise cold and impassive face. She was like a storm beneath that stone, Martha thought with some fondness and pride. A sun storm, bright and hot and unforgiving.

Martha couldn't say that Rose was doing the right thing. She didn't have a clear idea of what the "right thing" could possibly be. Every dilemma was a universe unto itself, she had once read somewhere, one without precedent or moral rules to dictate its future. Given the choice between imprisonment and capital punishment, Martha had always thought her stance to be imprisonment. But when the prison was eternal torment, perhaps death was the better course.

But who was to say that they didn't deserve harsher punishment than death? Martha squinted hard at herself and decided, savagely, that she wanted the Family to _hurt_.

It wasn't just the deaths that Martha had been witness to that called for justice in blood. Thanks to Rose, she knew that the despicable violence that had erupted in Lupus Nocens that night would not be explained by alien invasion, but human folly; the blame would settle on the shoulders of those glad to take it, glad to ignite the powder keg, glad to launch the first missile that would come with the first declaration of war. The Family had inadvertently caused World War Three, in which millions would die in the crucial six months it would take Rose and the Doctor to notice and contain the problem. Martha thought she would rather like to hear the full story of that someday.

But for what they had done, death was too kind, she thought. Too forgiving. And yet, it was mercilessness she was seeing in Rose's eyes now. Why?

Martha tried to imagine herself in Rose's shoes. It was impossible. As much as Rose tended to claim that they were more alike than not, Martha knew that Rose was stronger. She could endure anything, given sufficient support. After tonight, Martha felt a bit like humpty dumpty.

Then Martha realized that Rose's punishment was not yet complete. The beauty was in the sparkling ice and glittering aurora and diamond stars. Rose was not judge, jury, and executioner. She was a goddess come to lay the final judgment on those for whom she claims responsibility. She was simultaneously their salvation and damnation, sentencing death and forcing them to face it before letting them give in to the black.

Death was too kind, but life was unforgiving. The Family's punishment was not to die, but to live to death.

**Two hours earlier…**

Akura wanted to go home. The apartment on 20th Avenue had never really felt like home, which was why she had tried to spend so much time away from it, but once she accepted Martha back into her life it had felt more like home than anything ever had.

Now she'd never get that back, and already she missed waking up to the smell of hazelnut coffee and half-burnt toast. She missed jogging around the block with Martha, not talking because they weren't fully awake yet, just glad to exist in another's space. She missed fighting over the remote, and over the last ice cream sandwich, and over who was responsible for one chore or another that day. She missed the compromises—Akura would keep the remote, but switch the TV to something she usually hated, like _America's Next Top Model_, which was enjoyable only with Martha's wicked humor; Martha would get the ice cream sandwich, but then she'd go out a minute later and come back with Akura's favorite fudge clusters; Martha would cook and Akura and would load the dishwasher, and Akura would sweep and Martha would vacuum. Domesticity at its normal best—gone now, probably forever.

Untold minutes of silence passed in tense rigidity as Akura felt the hollowness in her chest from the destruction of a home she hadn't realized she'd loved until this moment. The memory of a splash of blood and an unearthly scream of terror rended the image to pieces and she couldn't muster the strength to collect them, let alone sew them back together.

Isaac shifted, and the pieces scattered further, escaping. He held out his fist under Akura's and Martha's gazes and turned his wrist so the palm was facing up; then he slowly, slowly as if it pained him, spread his fingers to reveal what he was holding.

It was a pocketwatch.

Akura felt Martha's breath leave the barn.

"She told me," Isaac's voice was raspy, and he paused to clear it; "She told me not to give it away."

Martha closed her eyes as if in benediction.

"She who?" Akura demanded dumbly.

"Rose."

Martha's voice was almost reverent and Akura felt something tight like anger and frustration and sadness welded into a heavy ball in her chest.

"Rose Tyler? The girl from the _Corner_?"

Isaac was looking back and forth between them, still holding out the watch.

"Now she wants me to give it to you," he said to Akura.

Akura wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it, but was terrified that if she started, she'd never stop.

"And how do you know that? Did she just stick her head in here sometime in the last fifteen minutes and I just didn't notice?"

Isaac just frowned down at the watch in his hand. Akura sighed resignedly and took it from him. The silver fob watch was old and engraved with a weird amalgam of gears and circles and astronomical signs. The metal was cold despite the warmth of Isaac's hand, but Akura's own hands were so stiff and numb she hardly noticed. Otherwise, there appeared to be nothing special about the damn thing.

Isaac and Martha were looking at her like they expected the fob watch to burst to life at her touch. Akura rolled her eyes at them.

"Don't open it," said Isaac suddenly, reaching out as if to snatch the watch away from Akura. Akura reflexively clutched it to her chest, bewildered at his mood swing. "Please," he said, still reaching. "I take it back, please, let me take it back, just don't open it." He seemed to be on the verge of tears.

Now she wanted to open it.

She looked at Martha, who was biting her lip.

"He's only saying that because…" she seemed to be taking a leap of deduction; "because Rose must have just told him something he didn't like. You have to open it, Akura. It's the only way to end this."

"Why? What is so important about a damn watch?"

"It's _her_," Isaac whispered. "Please, she'll kill you, don't open it."

Akura looked in askance at Martha, whose hair shadowed her face as she leaned forward.

"It's hard to explain." Martha licked her lips. "The Rose Tyler you met in the _Corner_ wasn't…I mean, she's different from the one Isaac is…hearing. The one you met is from the past. The man she was with, the Doctor, isn't really a doctor, he's an alien who time travels. Remember that dream you told me about? With the magic blue box?"

Akura's mouth hung open. "Are you serious right now? Because if you're not, I swear to God, Martha…"

"It's true," said Isaac hoarsely. "She told me." He jerked his head at the watch Akura was still holding to her chest. "She has powers, Akura. Such power…" he shuddered.

"Back at the _Den_," said Martha, "Argen wasn't really Argen, and Melissa wasn't Melissa. They were being possessed by these—well, these aliens. They want Rose's power, which is why she hid it all, along with her memories, inside the fob watch."

The pieces clicked. Empty One. Bad Wolf's human body. Bad Wolf must be Rose's nickname or something. And the body…the shell of what Rose Tyler used to be…Rose Tyler's human alter ego…

"Then I…I'm _her_, aren't I? I'm Rose, only I don't have my memories."

"No!" Isaac's cry was anguished.

"Why can you hear her?" Akura asked him. He shook his head; Martha bit her lip uncertainly.

"Some people," she revealed, "can hear things from the watch."

Akura peered at the object in question. It didn't _seem_ to be anything special. It didn't _look_ like it held a missing piece of her soul. And she couldn't hear anything.

"And this Rose…what kind of powers does she have? Why is Arg—Meliss—why are the aliens so desperate to get it that they would…?" She couldn't finish, choked by tears.

Martha took a deep breath. "Rose has—had—a connection with, erm, _time_, I guess you could say, like, time itself. I don't know what all she can do, but…well, I was struck by a whole bunch of gamma radiation once, like lightning, and I think I may have actually died from it, but you…Rose brought me back."

Isaac started shaking his head in denial. Or fear. Or something. Akura was more focused on Martha.

"She can do that?" Her eyes glittered with hope. "She can bring the dead back to life?"

"NO!" Isaac shrieked, jumping to his feet. Martha and Akura flinched. "I won't let you do this! There has to be another way!"

"Isaac—"

"You'll _die_ if you open that watch, don't you get it?! Rose will come back, and take over _your_ body, like those aliens that possessed Melissa, and then you, you—you won't _be_ Akura anymore! Everything you could be, the future you could have had—"

He stopped, throat closing on whatever words he'd have said next.

Akura worked her jaw for a moment, trying to figure out how to explain what she was feeling. A sixteen-year-old boy's head was being sawed off inside her heart. The cold December was seeping through her skin and numbing something that went deeper than her bones.

This watch was the key to keeping more deaths from happening, possibly ever again.

"That's already happened," she finally said. "I'm not Akura anymore. I'm something else. I've changed."

"We can work past this," Isaac insisted. "The cops, the Guard, they'll stop the aliens, and we…we're good together, aren't we? I really, _really_ like you, Akura. You can keep going to your therapist, and maybe now I'll come with you, because damn if I won't have nightmares after all this, but you can't give up. Please, don't give up. For me."

His eyes were warm and brown and terrified and filling with tears. Her heart ached; he truly cared about her. In another life, maybe she could have had this. Maybe she could have been normal, could have lived an ordinary life, worked past her demons and settled down with the kindest man she'd ever known. They could have gotten a mortgage, a house with windows and doors and carpets and a garage for cars and maybe a fence for a dog, and maybe, just maybe, she could have started a family with him.

But that life was Akura's.

The screams in her head called her Rose Tyler.

This was all her fault. The least she could do was save whoever was left.

She didn't really believe that she could ever have worked past what Argen had done to her, anyway. Akura was a shell of a person who'd never truly existed in the first place. Akura Kraft was just a temporary replacement for a hero on vacation, and now she was a fucked-up facsimile of a girl who couldn't do a damn thing to help anyone because she couldn't even help herself.

"People change," she said quietly, meeting Isaac's disbelieving gaze. "We _change_, and we grow, and we die, and we _choose_ to change. Sometimes we even choose to die. What we are one minute can be completely different from who we are in the next. Maybe it's a cosmic build-up of choices that led us here, but that doesn't really matter, because right now…right now, I choose this. I'm sorry, Isaac."

Akura opened the watch.

And her world _exploded into golden flame._

_Pain cracked down her skull, searing like liquid fire down her spine until it was burning and writhing and twisting inside of her. She closed her eyes, overwhelmed, and then opened them again quite suddenly, stumbling backward dizzily in shock. Her ears rang with the rushing, howling sound of an invisible wind, _howling_, just continuous _howling_, like a wolf in mourning._

_The pain was too much. She opened her mouth to scream, but all she could hear was the howling. She could see the universe, its creation and its death, and then everything in between. She could see stars live and die, planets rot and melt away, love sear through the fabric of time and space, anger scorch the worlds, burn them, until _everything_ was burning, just _burning_, nonstop, like it couldn't stop; a fire that ruled the cosmos._

Suddenly, a different kind of pain, the throbbing, aching kind instead of the burning kind, spiked across her muddled senses, originating from her wrist. She looked down, bewildered, to see what had caused it, but was distracted by a similar _cracking, tearing, aching, unbearable_ agony erupting along her entire spine. She gasped, doubling over. Her insides were churning worse than they had been in the _Den_ as she regurgitated all the food she'd eaten in a week; now her guts were threatening to rise up and out of her mouth, and her blood was like acid, and her eyes were stinging like they'd been stabbed, and her nose and ears were _stretching_, and _God_ she'd never felt anything this torturous in her life.

Akura dropped to all fours, dry heaving and hacking and coughing. She felt like she was expanding, exploding from her skin, she was hot all over, and her muscles were rippling with foreign power, and her senses were on overload, picking up sounds and colors and smells that she had never dreamed even existed.

Then a piercing cacophony of music, of _singing_—all the fucking things in the infinite universe and it had to be _singing_?!—broke through the pain, attacked the pain viciously, forced the pain to wash away in waves, blanking her mind of all thought, ridding her heart of the weakening emotions that led her here, stripping away a part of her that died screaming.

Bad Wolf threw back its head and howled in anger as part of its soul faded away forever.

When the pain was gone, and the music quieted to background noise, Bad Wolf lowered its head and searched for comfort. Another of its kind. It stretched its senses wide and far, across universes, across time itself, and found nothing but an aching hollowness that would never change. Bad Wolf was the only one of its kind; it was alone; it was always and would always be alone.

Bad Wolf lifted its lips in a pained snarl. It opened its eyes and searched the area for the cause of its pain. Who did this? Who forced this existence into being? Who _dared_?

A tiny human woman cowered at Bad Wolf's front paws. Her dark eyes were wide, and she was breathing shallow breaths of—it sniffed eagerly—_fear_. The puny little creature had every fucking right to be afraid. The wolf growled and sat back, gathering the power to leap forward and devour the human.

The woman broke free of her terrified stupor and fled. The wolf let her go for a moment as the singing roared excitedly in its head. Bad Wolf howled happily. The hunt was on.

…

As it began to run, Bad Wolf observed.

First, its body was female; 'it' was a _she_—not that this mattered, for who could differentiate between the sex of a species of which there was only one?

Second, the night sky was clear. It pulsed with lights that had died long ago, and a bright moon outshone them all. A chilly breeze swirled softly between the stars and through trees and around buildings as the hunt led Bad Wolf towards a human establishment.

Third, humanity was a failure. In fact, it was probably the one true human failing. Perhaps it was their mortality that made them so…flawed. So flawed as to seem _in_human. It was as if their purpose, the meaning of their fleeting lives, was to wreak destruction on all of creation—destruction _by_ creation, no?

The weak had been left for dead. Little men and women in black uniforms scurried from rumbling green machines, firing aimlessly at robotic creatures of their own manufacturing. Haggard faces rummaged through abandoned gems that had never belonged to them while all around them their fellow humans shrieked in agony. Those who were trying to escape by the main roads were frustrated by a long line of traffic, stomping out and running on foot amid honks and shouts of anger and soon a chaotic entanglement of human bodies were rushing together and apart and together and apart again in a mass that tried to move forward but only succeeded in descension. The uniforms tried to contain them, but merely goaded the crowd into attacking them; it seemed that the uniforms were being blamed—or perhaps they were being begged to take them all to safety, it was hard to tell. A man with stars on his shoulders bellowed through a cone-shaped device—_megaphone_—ordering his troops to stand ready to fire on the innocent if they kept up the not-so-innocent violence.

_Weak_, all of them.

Shadows of memory lurked in Bad Wolf's mind of times when this was not so, of times when humans banded together to accomplish great and wonderful things, but the memories were too indistinct to take at face value. Perhaps they were only dreams.

Much clearer was the memory of pain, and fear, and hatred.

Hazy faces with red, burning eyes hovered over her, leering, laughing, pawing intermittently at her chest, her…tail?, grabbing her arms, breathing harshly into her face, breath that smelled stale and acidic. The sound of something ripping. Lackadaisical pushing against something hard and unyielding; no energy, no will to fight. _Weak_. Mumbling some form of pathetic protest to an audience of side-splitting guffaws. Something rough rubbing against her legs, something clamping down on her shoulder. Then pain, penetrating and reaching something no being should ever be allowed to touch. Vomit, the kind of regurgitation that was so violent there should be guts evacuating their hollows. Slime and grime and grittiness everywhere. _**Weak**_**.**

Bad Wolf snarled and pushed on.

The tiny human she was chasing veered far away from the side of the city where the uniforms fired at the machines and where more uniforms were being swallowed by the collective beast that had once been human. Bad Wolf was amused by her prey's trail; as if those humans mattered? No, all that mattered was avenging what had been done to her.

Life was not a suffering Bad Wolf would wish on anyone, especially not her foolishly, admirably, willful prey.

The prey ducked into tiny spaces and claustrophobic buildings; Bad Wolf tore apart walls and fences and trees as if they were cardboard and foil and twigs, leaving no ground for her quarry. The hunt led her to a spacious place with large clusters of buildings, where the prey desperately chucked a rock at a window in a door in order to open it and scuttle inside, closing the locked door behind her.

Bad Wolf huffed. The doors seemed built to withstand a siege, and her paws were too large and unwieldy to fit through the broken window. She paced and grunted and snarled, thinking.

_The roof!_

Bad Wolf backed away and took a running start at the large building—_gym_, whispered the source of pain—before leaping gracefully, soaring higher and higher, until finally her front claws dug into stone and she hunkered elegantly over the side of the building and onto the top of it. She stepped gingerly, stretching her senses, sniffing for her prey, feeling for weak spots in the roof.

There was another vague memory of pain, too. A large white wall. A big blue box.

People left her. She was alone.

_There!_

Triumphantly, Bad Wolf smashed through the ceiling of the gymnasium and landed perfectly on the floor below. The human yelped and sprinted to the the door. Bad Wolf chuckled and jumped over the prey's head, landing in front of her. The woman skidded to a stop and tried to turn in the other direction.

_It is pointless to run,_ sighed Bad Wolf into the human's mind. The prey froze.

"Rose?" she whispered.

Bad Wolf felt a strange burning sensation in her chest and it annoyed her.

_You gave me life. You shall pay._

The woman scrunched her face and most unattractive—_adorable_, said the pain—way.

"Huh?"

_I am alone. I am in pain. You are to blame, therefore you must pay._

"If life is such a punishment, why kill me?"

Bad Wolf regarded her prey in frosty silence. Why, indeed. Such an interesting question to be posed when one is on the brink of destruction. Was this another human failing? What fascinating flaws they gave so freely for others to exploit.

But since she had eternity, Bad Wolf decided to reward her prey for being interesting with a considerate answer.

_Your life holds meaning to you. It is important and you consider it worth preserving. Robbing you of it is the punishment I have deemed suitable for what you have done to me._

The woman stiffened her spine and seemed to grow three inches.

"Rose, this isn't you. I have no idea what happened, but I can _help_ you."

Bad Wolf growled as the burning in her chest grew in intensity. This was no longer as fun as it had been.

The name came from the source of pain—_Rose Tyler_.

_Rose Tyler does not exist._

"Yes, she does!" Insisted the prey. "She's you!"

Bad Wolf roared in outrage at the burning became unbearable. She lashed out, claws extended, but the woman—_Martha_, whispered the pain—ducked underneath and vaulted for the doors. Bad Wolf spun around snapped at the prey—_Martha_, the pain insisted—but she instinctively leapt to the side and shouldered through the doors, slamming them closed in Bad Wolf's face just as she lunged.

The chase was brought nearer to the other humans, now, though Bad Wolf did not have a clear enough mind to deduce why. The human—_Martha!_ the pain screamed—was smarter this time, more controlled, less panicked as she picked her way through the ruined city. She roamed close enough to the metal death contraptions to get speared but managed to get away at the last second; Bad Wolf was very nearly skewered herself. This would not have mattered, for she would have healed from the injury, but she was not eager to add to her own pain.

Then she disappeared into a building, there was the sound of glass shattering, and Bad Wolf lost her scent.

She growled deeply, stalking through the building. She followed the trail to the shattered glass front and jumped through onto a poorly lit street. The trail went into the alley and disappeared less than halfway in. Bad Wolf sniffed angrily, looking around sharply for clues, but there seemed to be none. Just a very large, very full dumpster of rotting food and a heap of bags that had been too heavy for puny humans to throw.

Bad Wolf looked twice at the bags and her upper lip curled in disgust. She stalked gracefully to the bags and slashed sharply at them with one paw, scattering the disgusting contents all over the alley and revealing the prey, who stood to meet Bad Wolf's eyes, trembling head to foot in fear.

Bad Wolf licked her lips, thrilled at the taste of the human's fear.

Victory was within reach.

Bad Wolf prepared to deal the final blow.

_NO!_

"Wait."

…Perhaps death could wait.

**ΘΣ … ΘΣ … ΘΣ**

"_We're so lucky we're still alive to see this beautiful world. Look at the sky. It's not dark and black and without character. The black is in fact deep blue. And over there! Lighter blue. And blowing thorugh the blueness and the blackness, the winds swirling through the air. And there, shining, burning, bursting through, the stars! Can you see how they roll their light?_

"_Everywhere we look, complex magic of nature blazes before our eyes!"_

**ΘΣ … ΘΣ … ΘΣ**

**A few minutes later…**

Through the blackness the creature struck with its claws first, rending its target to shreds. Then, for extra insurance, it ripped into the target's throat with its teeth, closing its jaws so far around the neck that the head snapped free and barely clung to the shoulders with a slip of plastic.

Martha, who had not moved, so certain was she that the creature would not harm her, stared dispassionately at the remains of the mannequin that had been seconds away from stabbing her with a serrated steak knife.

"Thank you," she told the creature, whose eyes were blazing with golden fire. The trembling in her body had dissipated with the mannequin's attack. (Which would probably seem sick to most people, but Martha was used to danger, and welcomed it like an old, comforting friend.)

The creature gazed down at Martha, unmoving. Its expression, being inhuman, was unreadable.

_Show me your hero. Only then I will decide who I am._

Martha took a deep breath and nodded, stepping over the shreds of the mannequin to lead Bad Wolf to Rose Tyler. Together, they would be invincible, powerful, immortal.

**ΘΣ … ΘΣ … ΘΣ**

**Less than half an hour later…**

The night sky of Woman Wept was not black. There were blue and green and golden lights swirling through the air, and the stars were bright, and it was impossible to see the heavens without also seeing the massive waves of ice that arced toward them.

Even with the cold, or perhaps because of it, this would be a beautiful place to live.

That was, Martha had recently decided, the whole point.

Woman Wept was one of those weird places in the universe that should be impossible. The ocean had frozen at high tide. It didn't make sense, it wasn't rational. How could an entire ocean freeze in an instant like that? The planet itself continued to circle its sun; the sun had not yet died, and yet the waves remained frozen.

It wasn't just beautiful, it was unspeakably fantastic.

The Family and their hideous army had slaughtered hundreds of people earlier that night. Not three hours before, Martha could have bathed in the blood that had been splashed on the world. Her hands and face and hair and clothes were still stained with it, dried and flaking off now. For six months, the war that was sparked by the Family's attack would burn across continents and bury millions.

Rose was staring at her; Martha smiled. Rose blinked, surprised, like she hadn't expected Martha to even be capable of smiling.

So Martha took her hand, making Rose smile, too, a smile that made her eyes shine in that warm, familiar way so unlike the frightening, seemingly godlike Bad Wolf.

**ΘΣ … ΘΣ … ΘΣ**

"_How golden can you make the burning sun? How immortal the things which have to die?_

"_The threads are thinning, eroding, disappearing—the threads are dangling, shining, blinding; fading—the threads are mocking, and you're falling—"_

**ΘΣ … ΘΣ … ΘΣ**

**About an hour earlier…**

The Mother's patience was falling rapidly down a sheer cliff and would explode into tiny pieces when it finally landed. How had this happened? Why were they not yet masters of the universe?

"Dear Wife of Mine," said her Husband soothingly, "it is through no fault of ours that the wolf—"

She held up a hand for silence. Their Children, the two who could walk, were pacing restlessly around the large blue box they had sniffed out, trying to find a way in. In the street, National Guard members patrolled for the Family's remaining soulless warriors. The stomping of their boots, sharp orders, and roaring engines concealed the Family's voices from their detection.

"We were foolish, Husband of Mine," she said. "We assumed that the humans would care for their own and attempt to circumvent their destruction by any means. It appears we were… mistaken."

The Father of the Family opened his mouth to, perhaps, protest.

"No matter," she interrupted. "If they open the watch, Rose Tyler will come for her TARDIS. We may feast then."

Suddenly, the Daughter appeared at the Mother's elbow.

"Mother of Mine," she said urgently, "I smell something."

Mother sniffed. Indeed, from far down the alley there drifted a faint trace of power. It was hardly an echo of the power they sought, but it was more than they currently had.

"Son of Mine."

Her Son nodded curtly and stalked away from the TARDIS towards the echo. Shortly after, there was a deafening scream, attracting the attention of Guard soldiers in the street nearby.

Soon, the Family were being targeted by the humans' primitive projectile weaponry. They dove for cover behind the TARDIS and a rather large, smelly garbage receptacle. Sparks flew; when there was a pause, the Mother fired her own weapon, instantly disintegrating one of their attackers. The soldier was immediately replaced with another; their fire was relentless. Their own animated army was currently scattered across the city; it would take many minutes for them to mobilize into a force formidable enough to protect the Family.

Meanwhile, her Son was struggling with a human male behind her. When she turned to look, she identified him as the male who had stood with Rose Tyler's human shell. Her eyes gleamed. Perhaps _he_ possessed the watch, stolen from the wolf's guardian?

Unfortunately, she could not spare a minute to help her Son. She, her Daughter and her Husband were finding it difficult to halt the inexorable approach of the human soldiers; soon they would be outflanked and have no cover. In fact, she could hear a monstrous noise in the sky coming ever closer, the ugly sound of fat blades beating against the air.

"Husband of Mine," she instructed loudly over the sound of gunfire, "employ the explosive device!"

Her Husband reached into the waistband of his jeans and retrieved a cylindrical device. He twisted the top of it, spurring lights to gleam around the edges. He waited a few seconds before throwing it into the soldiers' midst; it exploded on impact, causing the earth to tremble. The humans didn't even have a chance to scream before they were vaporized in a flash of light. The buildings at that end of the alley collapsed, blocking the Family from further attack from that direction.

The primitive aircraft that was beating at the sky came into view; Daughter of Mine fired swiftly and accurately into the cockpit, killing the pilot. The aircraft hovered for a moment before tilting dangerously askew and descending rapidly to crash with a dull, resounding _BOOM_ out of sight. Its parts would soon be scavenged to join their army of animated machinery, which was slowly approaching, cutting down all humans that got in their way unleashing what amounted to a torrential downpour of blood.

The man her Son had been fighting managed to deliver a stunning blow that allowed him to flee as the Mother, Father, and Daughter were preoccupied with the aircraft. At the same time, Guard soldiers began to emerge at the other end of the alley, forcing the Family to take cover again.

"Hold your fire!"

The human male that had stood by Rose Tyler and Martha Jones had nearly reached the soldiers. Incensed, the Mother fired a kill shot, hoping as she did so that he _not_ have the watch on him, or it, too, would be gone forever—

But then a brave, stupid soldier broke rank and dove for the fleeing man, shoving him away from the bright green light. The soldier took the blast instead, transforming into a small heap of dust.

The sacrifice stunned the humans; the Family began firing in earnest, killing dozens in less than a minute as the man-who-may-have-their-watch cowered behind a garbage receptacle. In moments, the Family subdued their attackers long enough to press forward and capture the man.

As it turned out, he did in fact possess the watch. But when the Mother hungrily attempted to feed on it, she found nothing. Absolutely… _nothing_. She snarled.

"You opened it!"

"Not me," said the man, panting where they had forced him to kneel.

Her Husband prepared to kill him.

"Wait!" he cried. "The watch is worthless, but Ak—Rose will give in if you use me." The Father paused. "She—cares about me."

"He can do no harm now, Mother," said the Daughter softly. The Son scoffed; a hideous black bruise was forming around his eye where the human had struck him.

"Very well," said the Mother, reluctantly. "Spare him for now. We shall see if the wolf will surrender for him."

"Jones would make a better hostage, Wife of Mine," said her Husband.

"Jones is likely dead," she retorted. She threw the useless fob watch at their hostage; he flinched as it struck him in the head and she and her Son smiled vindictively. The man merely glared down at the watch as if it had done him a great wrong and ought to burn—burn with the sky the Family intended to destroy, perhaps.

**ΘΣ … ΘΣ … ΘΣ**

**Meanwhile…**

Martha felt a bit like she was falling, tumbling down a rabbit hole. No, that wasn't right. She'd been living in the rabbit hole for months and was only now becoming aware of how odd it was. The city had gone _mad_, there were still machines and mannequins crawling around all over the place, disemboweled corpses strewn on every corner, screams occasionally rending the night in pieces.

They had to get out of here.

Martha knew that Isaac still had the watch and that he intended to find the Family and give it to them. She was quite sure the watch was empty of all but that which made Rose essentially _Rose_; there was not enough power there for the Family to consume.

She was still furious about what Isaac had done. Mere seconds after Akura had opened the fob watch, Isaac had lunged forward and struck her wrist hard enough to send the watch flying, disrupting the energy flow from watch to woman. Isaac and Martha had both scrambled to get to the displaced watch, but Isaac was faster. He'd grabbed it and then run from the barn faster than Martha could do much more than curse at him.

Before she could run after him properly, Akura had transformed into a wolf-like creature and proceeded to attack Martha. And since Isaac had taken the car they'd appropriated…well, Martha was certain her legs would be screaming at her in the morning. They were already wobbly as she followed the fierce creature that used to be Akura—Rose—whoever—through Lupus Nocens.

To find Rose, Martha had told the creature, they'd need to find the Family—the aliens who intended to steal the creature's power and use it for all manner of unseemly and nefarious things.

The wolf hadn't been thrilled, but Martha had realized that the otherworldly creature was a bit arrogant. Martha was almost positive that it did not believe the Family were capable of as much harm as Martha claimed.

In any case, it was not difficult to locate the Family. They were less than a block from _The Wolf Den_ diner, probably in the exact same alley where Rose had parked the TARDIS two months and three weeks ago. The gunfire, screams, and explosions were loudest in that part of town, and as Martha and the wolf followed the sounds, Martha identified the area and groaned quietly to herself.

One end of the alley was blocked off by rubble. As they came closer, Martha saw a large group of mannequins and machine-things scrambling closer to the other end; the Family's reinforcements. A contingent of National Guard members—and possibly some Army, too—piled out of the back of a large green truck and assaulted the Family's troops. They started with grenades and grenade launchers, but the enemy was numerous and every time one of them blew apart, it would re-assemble itself within a minute.

Martha and her companion slinked around the battle and ducked into a nearby building, a drug store. Martha didn't have time to gather her thoughts or catch her breath, though; almost as soon as they crossed the threshold, the wolf went rigid, then jackknifed and began convulsing violently—it was all Martha could do to get out of the way. Several shelves of over-the-counter medicine toppled over.

Moments later, heart-rending howls joined the screams from the battle outside. Martha approached cautiously, ready to leap aside if the wolf had another seizure. When all it did was sit there, breathing heavily, she tentatively laid a hand on its neck.

The wolf jumped and turned to look at her.

And Martha _knew_, she just _knew_ that Rose was back. She felt like flying.

"All right, then?"

Rose scoffed. She stood up and shook her shaggy, light-absorbing fur with enough force to dislodge Martha's hand.

_I got Isaac to convince the Family the watch was worthless_, rumbled Rose's not-a-voice in Martha's head—she felt like she could sing at the feel of it. _He opened it when I told him to. When I could sense you—well, Bad Wolf, anyway._

Martha was confused.

"But I thought he went to the Family to _give_ the watch to them."

Rose made an odd jerking motion with her head which Martha translated as a shrug.

_He did_.

Martha put those questions aside for now. "So what do we do? It seems like they're at a stalemate."

She was referring to battle that still raged outside; there were still bone-chilling human screams, but the fight had not wavered since it began.

The drug store was tiny for a creature Rose's size, but she trampled over fallen medicine and paced relentlessly, obviously thinking.

Snippets of Rose's thoughts were loud enough to be projected to Martha's brain, but she couldn't connect them to each other. _They could have . . . but why…? Unless . . . But where would they hide it? The ship? . . . But then where…? And how long have they been here—?_

"I think they came when you and the Doctor from the past showed up; the second time, I mean."

The wolf-like creature stopped and pinned Martha with a curious stare.

_Maybe_, she agreed. _But it was probably that other time, before his regeneration . . . Melissa was acting, er,_ odd_ before that _weird_ day at the _Den_. I thought I—Akura thought, I mean—_

She huffed and rolled her eyes.

"Argen," said Martha quietly, and Rose flinched. Familiar anger clawed at Martha's lungs, but she shunted it to the side. "He went missing, remember?"

_Nearly three weeks ago. Yeah. But why wait so long?_

"Maybe they thought they'd have time to trap you."

_But the Doctor said—when he told me about them, he said it like the Family just _goes_ for it, as soon as they catch their target's scent. Why would they wait? And why didn't they go after me when I was with the Doctor? If they were already here, they must have known…_

Rose had started pacing again.

"You told me when I first met you that you were just a human. You honestly didn't know, did you?" Rose shook her head. "Well then, you must not have been as—as powerful back then. The Family wants as much as they can get, right, so they must have ignored you—and the Doctor—in favor of, well, you."

Martha could almost see the pieces clicking together in Rose's head.

_This is nothing at all like what the Doctor described. They're starving, they should be desperate for power, not greedy for it. The Doctor and I were easy targets back then, unsuspecting. And they certainly wouldn't have cared about paradoxes. They don't—they're not_ patient_—they don't _plan_ things like this—it's like they're deliberately setting out to secure their future, which is—_

She stopped abruptly.

_That's it._

"What is?"

Rose had a look in her eye that Martha didn't recognize. It was dangerous, dark. Resigned. It sent shivers down her spine.

_Martha, I need you to do something dangerous for me._

"Okay."

Rose gave her a weird look; even weirder because she was currently a canine that didn't have strictly human facial expressions. Martha grinned sheepishly.

_All right…so here's how it's going to go…_

…

Martha cursed her eagerness to help as she dodged a stray bullet—literally. The battle was still raging on the street, and Rose wanted her to get a few things from the fucking soldiers like she was enjoying an Easter egg hunt on a normal sunny morning.

"Bloody hell," she muttered darkly as she dove out of the way of flying debris and rammed her shoulder into a wall.

Gritting her teeth against the dull pain, she snuck onto the Guards' supply truck and retrieved the items successfully. A soldier ran up before she could get out, so she shrank into the shadows and prayed he wouldn't see her. He slung an automatic rifle across his shoulders and enough spare ammo to distribute to his fellows. A shrill scream rang out and he paled, stumbling over himself to get back into position. The soldiers guarding the truck laughed at him.

Martha waited until their backs were turned, then slipped quietly into the night.

Rose had explained that since the Family were apparently holding the TARDIS and Isaac hostage, their base—their ship—had to be nearby. Martha had suggested the shed; evidently, the Family had removed the TARDIS from its hiding place, which would leave it open for another vehicle—but Rose shot down the idea for some reason, saying they wouldn't want to risk it getting blown up or buried in rubble during the battle. They finally agreed that the ship must be on top of a building nearby—but not so near it could get destroyed by accident—and Martha wondered aloud, jokingly, if they'd parked it over the _Den_. Rose took the idea and ran with it, and now she was off doing who knew what while Martha stole property of the U.S. government.

A wailing cry arose from the alley that sounded suspiciously like Melissa—the Mother. Martha hadn't a clue was Rose had done, but she was glad the Family was too preoccupied to notice a lone human woman climbing to the roof of a diner.

A semi had toppled over in the parking lot and skidded into the north wall of the diner, half-destroying it. Martha gripped the side mirrors and hauled herself onto one of the front tires, then up to the trailer, which was horribly dented. From there, she was able to grab an admittedly unstable roof trimming and heave her body onto it. She knelt there for a second, panting. She'd never had such an insane workout in her entire life, and that was counting that hawk-nosed, googly-eyed veteran substitute gym teacher in primary.

Finally forcing herself to her feet, Martha gingerly walked around the half-collapsed roof with her arms outstretched until her hands _finally_ brushed up against something."

"Gotcha!"

A few minutes later, task accomplished, Martha sprinted down the street towards the battle—which appeared to have been put on pause. The mannequins—what was left of them—and metal monsters were standing stock still in the road as if awaiting orders. The human soldiers took to kicking them over and tearing the pieces apart, scattering the bits so the monsters couldn't reform; it looked like it was going to take a while. They didn't seem to care anymore about the Family, if they even remembered they were there.

Martha moved along the side of a building trying not to be noticed as she crawled to the open mouth of the alley. There, she peered around the corner and had a surprisingly good view of Rose's side of the plan.

Rose had somehow managed to transform back into a humanoid—she even had the same bloody clothes that Akura had worn to the club earlier that evening—and was holding a bundle in her arms. The blankets appeared to be protecting a glass jar of glowing green gas.

Isaac was looking at Rose in horror from his position kneeling on the cold, gravelly pavement, his dark hair sticking up wildly in every direction and a dark bruise like a smudge of dirt on his forehead.

The Family had dropped their weapons and were staring with pleading expressions at Rose.

"…I will," she was saying. "Unless you agree to leave this planet and never return—I will smash it."

And she extracted the the jar from the blankets and held it over her head.

Melissa cried out in distress once more. Martha got the sense she'd been doing that several times since the first time she'd heard it; that the Family had been struck so senseless by Rose's threat—whatever it was—that they had yet to agree to Rose's terms.

But Rose, evidently, had lost patience—or perhaps she knew that Martha was there, or that Martha had had enough time to do what she'd set out to do—and made to throw the jar to the ground.

"Not my baby!" shrieked Melissa.

Martha's breath disappeared.

Rose paused, though she still held the jar rather irreverently, with a carelessness that could send it tumbling any moment.

"Then surrender," said Rose coldly.

Melissa nodded fervently.

"Very well," said the large black man at her side, his nostrils flaring. "We surrender."

Martha watched as all the grotesque creatures the Family had been utilizing as soldiers crumpled to the pavement, falling apart uselessly. There was a shocked moment of silence, then the human soldiers bellowed a deafening, victorious cheer, as if they had been the ones responsible.

"Martha," called Rose.

Martha took a calming breath that didn't do any good and left her position to stand at Rose's side. The woman nodded her head at the Family. Martha approached them cautiously, but they were eyeing the jar—the _baby_?—in Rose's hands and did not resist as she pulled out the plastic ties she requisitioned from the supply truck. One by one, she bound their hands together behind their backs.

"Blow it."

Martha armed the detonator she'd stuffed into her pocket and flipped the switch. A rumbling noise thundered through the freezing night, originating from the _Den_.

Rose handed the jar to Martha, who stared at it dubiously. Then the brunette snapped her fingers and the doors of the TARDIS popped open, spilling green-gold light into the alley, apparently springing to life at Rose's presence. Rose gestured mockingly for the Family to precede her into the TARDIS. Rose followed them, Martha trailing behind.

Isaac, who had not spoken since Martha's arrival, tried to follow Martha into the TARDIS, but as soon as Martha entered, the TARDIS doors slammed shut on his shocked and angry face.

Inside, the Family glared at Martha—probably because she was the one holding the jar, now. She shrugged at them apologetically.

"Interesting fact," said Rose blandly as she began turning dials and flipping switches. "The Family of Blood feeds on _time_ energy—not an easy thing to get hold of, that. In their natural form, their jus' a lot of bad gas. Reminds me of the Gelth, actually. But they have technology that allows them to consume defenseless minds—especially humans. Of course, they have to put that technology _somewhere_…"

She slammed a lever down and the TARDIS began moving in that way Martha recognized as merely entering the time vortex, not towards any destination in particular.

"The ship," Martha realized.

Rose pointed her. "The ship," she repeated. "Without it, they're locked in these human bodies. I imagine it's not pleasant for them."

She turned her head casually to survey the Family. Argen, the Son, was standing stiffly beside a coral column. The young Daughter was still holding her balloon, despite her hands being stuck behind her back, and had seated herself on the floor, pouting. Melissa stood staring at the jar in Martha's hands, and the Father just looked pissed. Every now and then, one's nostrils would flare as they sniffed the air instinctively.

"I understand what you've done," Rose told them. "And I understand what you tried to do. You've not had a substantial meal in years, I expect, and in all modesty I'm a veritable feast, aren't I?" No one replied, but Rose probably didn't expect them to. "And you only wanted the very best for your Babe, I get that. I do. Really, you only want what any family wants—support each other, love each other, live together—ensure you've each got a future, especially the younger generation, am I right?

"There's only one problem. If you consumed my power, it would consume you."

The Family finally looked away from the jar to peer at Rose.

She smirked with a hint of sadness.

"As a—well, as Bad Wolf, though that's not really accurate—I'm a bit of an arrogant slag—" Marth snorted; "—but truth is, I have little idea what I'm doing. The shock of basically having my soul ripped apart and put back together again changed me into something I don't understand yet. I can see people, and their place in time; I can see time streams crossing and winding and flowing in every direction. I can heal—" she glanced briefly at Martha. "And I can kill. And I honestly don't know how to control it. I don't, really, it kind of controls _me_.

"So what," she asked of the Family, "do you think would happen to people who know even less about it than I do; who exist to kill, and feed, and never stop? What kind of universe would we be living in right now if you had succeeded?"

None of them replied.

"But I do understand it," she said again. "Which is why I am giving you a choice."

They all stared at her. Her eyes were brown, with flecks of gold that were growing brighter, like stars. Her expression was fierce, but compassionate.

"You have murdered God knows how many humans tonight, and incited a war that will cause millions more deaths. So choose your punishment: peaceful death, or excruciating immortality?"

The Family gathered close and murmured to each other in voices too low for Martha to discern. She felt awkward carrying the Babe, so she placed the jar of wispy green stuff on the console. Her muscles felt like they were being pulled tight over her bones, and her bones were rigid and jagged and biting. Rose wouldn't look away from the Family.

Finally, the huddle separated.

"Peace," said the Mother.

Rose inclined her head. She reached around Martha and adjusted a dial, pushed a button on the other side of the console, and pulled another lever. The TARDIS began to materialize somewhere with a smoothness that surprised Martha, who was used to wild and rocky rides. Rose pulled on her leather jacket from where it was slung over the captain's seat and once again gestured for the Family to precede her.

Martha held the Daughter back, though. As if reading her mind, Rose used the sonic screwdriver that Martha had returned earlier to snap the ties off the girl's wrists. Martha then handed her the jar carrying the Babe. The Daughter sniffed haughtily and marched out the door with the jar.

Outside was shockingly freezing, though not unwelcomingly so. It had been almost as cold in Lupus Nocens. The TARDIS was parked next to what looked like a gigantic wall of glass. Overhead, a beautiful multicolored aurora shimmered gently and cast a greenish glow over all their faces and across the hard, slippery ground.

Martha walked a ways away from the TARDIS to look beyond the curved glass wall and saw with amazement that there were dozens, possibly hundreds of these walls, most of them towering impossibly high, thick at the base curving like a slide up to a thinner top that curled in on itself.

She touched one of the sculptures with a gloved hand and gasped a moment later at the chill that passed through the blood-stained leather to her fingers. It was _ice_. All of these things, they weren't walls, they were glass, they were _waves_, frozen waves—dear God, she was standing on an _ocean_.

A few moments later, Martha stood underneath a wave with her arms crossed, shivering as Rose explained to the Family what was going to happen to them.

"You have about a week left," stated Rose. The Daughter nodded sadly. "So does this planet. In simple terms, a long time ago a massive asteroid crashed into the planet and knocked the center of its rotation off. The asteroid's main components were ferrouglacium—otherwise known as 'ice iron.' The ocean," she waved her hand at the waves, "froze. In an instant. Even in broad daylight, it won't ever melt. We're pretty far up north, but if you're lucky you might see a sunrise before the sun explodes."

"This is it, then?" said Argen. Rose gazed at him steadily; Martha wanted to punch him. "You're just going to leave us here to die."

Rose pulled out her sonic screwdriver; all the plastic ties fell to the ground.

"Yes."

"Doesn't seem like much of a punishment," grunted the Father.

Rose sucked in a breath through her nose and apparently relished the burning sensation of the frozen air in her lungs; she looked around with a small smile at the gleaming ice waves, the aurora, the stars. Martha was close enough to see a perfect reflection of this impossible planet in Rose's eyes.

"You'll be surprised, then," said Martha before Rose could.

Feeling a separate world of exhaustion in each and every ligament in her body, Martha tugged at Rose's hand and together they turned away from the Family and the sleeping sea and went back home.

**ΘΣ … ΘΣ … ΘΣ**

After a long, hot shower, Martha fell gratefully into long, deep sleep. In the 'morning' or whatever passed for it on the timeless TARDIS, she pestered Rose into returning to Lupus Nocens to see Isaac.

"Akura never existed, Martha," said Rose harshly.

Martha stared her down. "Yes she did. No," she added when Rose looked ready to argue, "don't even give me that. Akura was as real as you are, and she died to bring you back." Rose looked a bit perplexed at that idea, but Martha gave her a moment and eventually, the brunette's face softened and she nodded reluctantly in agreement. "You owe it to her memory, to the life she could have had, to see him—at least to give him closure."

And so they went.

Martha wasn't surprised that Rose took them to a point several months after World War Three. The Lupus Nocens they'd left behind hadn't exactly been in the greatest shape. The past year had been good for the decimated city, and even though the work on restoring it was far from done, there _was _work being done.

The place where the _Den_ had been was converted into a memorial park. Rose brought them back here at a time when the park was set up with a stage and large crowd of people for a presentation of awards to American WWIII veterans.

They stood at the back inconspicuously and watched the ceremony with a kind of detached sadness. Rose showed Martha a glimpse of her own Smart Phone, which was evidently _extremely_ smart and displayed a cached webpage of a news article on the war. It spoke of a hero that had nearly died to save a friend and fellow soldier; the pictures showed Isaac Orman and Vance Bradley, one of Akura's old friends, with haunted eyes but hopeful faces.

According to the article, after the attack on Lupus Nocens, pretty much everyone who was physically able signed up to join the army and fight whatever imaginary foe they believed they were facing.

It was sickeningly tragic that very few of them came back.

When Isaac received his medal for valor, they saw that his 'near death' had completely disfigured half of his face. He was missing an eye, and his cheek, lips, and nose looked as if they had started melting and then been frozen that way. He was wearing a hat, but even so it was evidence that he wore what was left of his spiky brown hair in a style that almost seemed as though he'd shaven half of it.

As Isaac left the stage, he saw them. He didn't recognize them at first, but then he did a double take and stared. They waved and waited to see if he would come talk to them. He didn't, but he smiled a half smile—since the other half was frozen in a grimace—and gave them a lazy salute and wink for luck before turning away to speak quietly to Vance, who sat next to him.

Back on the TARDIS, Rose turned to Martha with the kind of finality she'd long since gotten sick of seeing.

"D'you want to go home?"

Martha rolled her eyes in advance at the only thing she could say to the dumbass question.

"I'm already here, though."

Rose was stunned. Martha laughed.

"Honestly, what would you do without me, anyway?"

She stubbornly tried not to think of how she'd failed to protect Akura—whose memories, Rose had already confessed, were extremely fuzzy in her head, and distant, like looking through a thick glass wall, for which Martha would be eternally grateful.

"I don't know," said Rose.

"Tell me something, though," plied Martha. "And be honest. Are you all right?"

Rose looked at her through her lashes; in her eyes, the brown was dark, but the gold was bright.

"No."

Martha smiled. "Me neither. But I'm not leaving. The crap we've been through…it's worth it."

"Is it?"

"Always."

"We've got a helluva journey ahead of us, Martha. The Doctor…I have to find him. And I think I have a way of figuring out how, but it won't be easy."

"Nothing worthwhile ever is. I'm not leaving. We can get stranded on Earth at the outbreak of World War Three, cause a revolution, defeat Daleks, and run ourselves into a living sun—"

"And just run," Rose added with a begrudging grin that lit up her grim face. "Lots of running." She sobered. "All that—won't you get tired of it?"

Martha pondered her reply, because she wanted Rose to take it seriously.

"We're still flying."

"That's not much."

"It's enough."

**ΘΣ … ΘΣ … ΘΣ**

"_There are worlds out there where the sky is burning, and the sea's asleep, and the rivers dream; people made of smoke and cities made of song. Somewhere there's danger, somewhere there's injustice, somewhere else the tea's getting cold. Come on, Ace, we've got work to do."_

**ΘΣ … ΘΣ … ΘΣ**

**Quotes, in order of appearance: 2005+ series 1x11, 1x01, 5x10; my series 3x11 (not yet written, it'll be in the next ep); orginal series 26x04.**

**Y'know, it occurs to me that writing comes about when I want something to happen and then I have to figure out how the hell I'm gonna get there. I wanted the Family to die on Woman Wept…and then all of **_**this**_** happened. 16k words. **_**Whew.**_

**Anyway… TBC in the original episode, "Four Things and a Lizard." Ooh, that one is going to be **_**fun**_**.**


	22. Four Things and A Lizard, Part I

**I'd give excuses, but of course it all boils down to RL. But I've been looking forward to this ep for a long time, so I knew I had to churn it out no matter what—and here it is. Finally.**

**Episode 11  
****Four Things and a Lizard, Part I**

Martha was bored out of her effing mind.

Apparently, the TARDIS agreed, because for once it was no trouble at all to find the library. In fact, to Martha's bemusement, she stepped through her bedroom door—and suddenly found herself staring up at the library's many, many, _many_ books crammed into seemingly endless storeys of shelves. Though a bit disconcerting, the convenience of being able to fulfill her sole mission for the day immediately after freshening up in the morning was very nice. The mission being, of course, to rouse Rose from her obsessive researching.

The library was at least the size of Rhode Island, but Martha knew exactly where to find her manic space companion: the mythology section.

True to form, Rose's nose was buried in an obscure tome from an obscure planet that more than likely spewed some obscure crap about "gods." And not just any kind of gods, no—not Greek gods, Egyptian gods, or demigods—these were strictly gods that were, to less primitive civilizations, caricatures of time travellers, and of Time Lords in particular.

Martha knew (because she had spent more time in this section than she cared to think about) that picking out these kinds of gods from all the others was not an easy task. Neither was tracing the true identity of the "gods" and then researching other places these gods may have been and what kinds of artifacts they may have left behind—and then finding out where the artifacts were now.

And it was driving Martha up the effing book-covered, impossibly high wall.

"We're on the Silurian shelf today, Martha," said Rose absently without looking up. She flipped a dusty page. "It actually looks really promising. I think they may have met the Doctor himself."

Martha sighed. Bemused, Rose blinked up at her.

"Do you realize how long we've been at this?"

"Er…"

"Ten. Days. _Ten_! I get that this thing, whatever it is, is _really_ hard to find, but—"

Rose rubbed a tired hand over her face.

"Have you even slept?"

"I told you, I don't sleep," Rose snapped.

Martha raised an eyebrow at her. Rose lowered her gaze and mumbled an apology.

"Hmph."

"Martha, I just _know_ there has to be one _somewhere_! A lot of these books even make oblique mentions of—"

"Rose." She fell quiet, though her jaw was set stubbornly. Martha really wished she didn't look so lush like that; it made it harder to argue with her. "Look—maybe you're just looking in the wrong books—oblique references aren't enough. Or maybe you don't even have the right one." They both gazed dubiously upward at the seemingly endless supply of books. "Seriously, though. You've been working nonstop for _days_, isn't your brain fried yet?"

Rose closed the book in her lap and sighed, running her hands through gritty, greasy locks. Despite claiming to have no need of sleep, she yawned.

"Tell you what," said Martha. "I'll run you a bath, a hot, bubbly, sweet-smelling bath—which you _will_ enjoy," she raised her voice a bit when Rose opened her mouth. "Then after an hour, no less than that—"

"I just need a quick shower—"

Martha continued, "—I'll make you breakfast—we're out of milk, by the way—"

"—maybe some coffee—"

"—and then you'll tell me about a planet made of paper or something—"

"—well, there is The Library, it's got every—"

"—and we'll go there, because if I have to spend another _minute_ in this room, I swear to God I'll leave the TARDIS entirely."

Rose paused. "Seriously?"

Martha rolled her eyes. "Of course not. But we've got to try something different; this," she gestured widely, "isn't working."

"…a bath, really?"

"Really. I'll pick you up and throw you in there if I have to."

"With what muscles, scrawny arms?" Rose laughed. Martha secretly delighted in the sound; she hadn't heard it in a while.

Martha was wearing a tank top; she jokingly flexed her arms at Rose.

"The ones that make yours shrink in fear!"

Rose snorted, though her eyes lingered on the lines Martha's biceps.

"That bad?"

Martha dropped her arms and nodded, smirking and waving a hand in front of her nose. "Sorry, darling," she drawled, "but you are _rank_."

Rose threw her hands up. "Fine! Help me up!"

Martha quickly shelved the tome that was still in Rose's lap—probably in the wrong place—and used both hands to haul Rose to her feet. She must have misjudged her own strength, for Rose stumbled a bit and for a second, they were standing a little too close for comfort; goosebumps prickled Martha's arms. She backed away quickly.

"Go make coffee," she ordered Rose as she made her way to the exit, "I'll start your bath!"

Rose grumbled under her breath and looked longingly over her shoulder at the Silurian mythology shelf as she left the room.

**ΘΣ … ΘΣ … ΘΣ**

Two hours later, they sat on bar stools at the island in the TARDIS's kitchen (one of them, anyway). Rose had a large stack of pancakes in front of her with so much syrup Martha was certain she'd get tooth decay from looking at it too long. Martha herself just had bacon, eggs, and toast; she was a simple girl.

That didn't stop her from stealing from Rose's plate when the other woman was distracted by explaining something or taking a drink.

"So…the wolf thing…"

Rose's fork, halfway to her mouth, stopped.

"I know we've been busy—it's just, you never really said—"

Rose lowered her fork and smirked. "You're safe on the full moon."

Martha rolled her eyes. She felt like she'd been doing that a lot lately.

"Great," she muttered. "I mean, you didn't look anything like the pictures in those books—"

"Yeah, he was—different."

"He?"

Rose shrugged. "I met a werewolf once."

Martha shook her head, scooping eggs into her mouth. "I'm not even surprised anymore."

"Funny story, actually; Queen Victoria—she was like, _deadly_ serious, _all_ the time—she made me a dame, right, and then five seconds later I was banished!"

Martha nearly snorted orange juice out her nose. "_What_?!"

"I know, right? I guess she wasn't amused that the Doctor and I had to save her from a werewolf. She started Torchwood Institute that same night."

"Really, though." Martha sobered. "What is this whole thing all about? Can you change anytime you want, now?"

Rose shook her head negatively, a strand of dark hair escaping her towel turban.

"No, not exactly. I mean, I don't even know." She swirled a bit of unmelted butter in her pool of syrup. "D'you know why it happened in the first place?"

"Isaac knocked the fob watch out of your hand before you could…finish."

Rose hummed as she undid her turban and threw the towel over an empty stool.

"I think it sort of…shocked my body into doing what it did. It only got my DNA—or at least, the part of my DNA that had mutated the rest of it, or something like that—"

"_The device is making sure the flux in Rose's DNA stabilizes before it sends her body into a complete meltdown…_

"_Rose is changing…"_

Martha blinked.

"—or maybe just the energy—"

"_Temporal energy from the time vortex to be specific…"_

"—whatever it is that makes me non-human. Anyway, yeah, Isaac sort of screwed that up, so…I can't really remember what that was like; did I—did I hurt you?"

"No," said Martha quickly, shaking the Doctor's voice out of her head. "But you were," _beautiful_; "a bit terrifying. Sharp…teeth. And claws."

Rose snarled playfully, "Rawr!"

That sticky goo around Martha's stool? That was what was left of her cardiovascular system.

"Anyway, unless we can recreate something like that, a _shock_ on my body, then I don't think I can—shift? Should we call it that?"

Martha decided not to think too much about what kind of shock Rose's body would need.

"How did you change back? After Isaac opened the watch, I mean? How did it feel? And—why did Isaac even open it, I thought he didn't want to?"

Rose chuckled and gestured for Martha to calm down and take a breath. Martha stuffed her face with bacon, face burning.

"Okay, Isaac first. See, he _didn't_ want to open the watch. After he knocked it out of my hand, I guess he got hold of it somehow—"

"We fought over it," Martha pouted. "But then I saw, in my peripheral, you were…" Screaming wasn't the right word, for there wasn't any sound, but the look of anguish on Rose's face… "I got distracted."

"So Isaac took off with the fob watch and tried to go to the Family with it. I'm not real clear on this part, since I wasn't, y'know, _whole_, but I guess he changed his mind, or the bit of me left in the watch convinced him, and he tried to get away, but it was too late. Then the Family held him hostage, thinking the watch was useless, and the bit of me inside it told him to open it as soon as the wolf was close enough."

"And how did that feel?"

"What are you, a shrink?" Martha backhanded her upper arm. "Ow! Anyway, it was…weird, I guess. I dunno, kind of normal, too. As if I wasn't really changing. Like—it was still _my_ body, you know?"

Martha didn't. "And how come you were still wearing clothes when you changed back?"

Rose cocked her head to the side, adorably like a young canine. "I think it's because my body didn't actually _change_, it just…moved. Like, I have two bodies, one I keep in a tiny pocket of space that's bigger on the inside. An' when I _shifted_, or whatever, they switched, like putting on a different outfit."

The comparison seemed outlandishly ordinary.

"So when you change, the other one…moves to the pocket? Along with whatever you had on you?"

Rose shrugged and nodded.

They finished eating in silence, Martha inferring that Rose didn't want to talk about it anymore.

"So," said Martha, leaning against the doorway of a bathroom as Rose fixed her makeup a few minutes later, "a library planet? Seriously?"

"I was thinking of a super-super-supercomputer planet, actually," said Rose, curling her lashes. Martha should have told her she didn't need to. "TX49. It's made completely out of silicon."

"Get out."

"No, really. And the people—well, if you want to call them people, they don't really care either way—are half-robot, or something."

"How does that work?"

"No idea." Rose grinned cheekily before blotting her lipstick. "But TX49 has pretty much _the_ largest digital database in the universe. If the information I'm looking for exists, it'll be there."

"What happened to the first forty-eight?"

"They crashed."

Martha tried not to smile, but it was hard going.

"Twenty into asteroid belts, nine into their own sun, two into other planets, and one into a giant spaceship."

"And the other nine?"

"System failure. Planet's core overloaded, wiped the half-robot people's memories. Had to start over on a clean hard drive, so to speak."

Martha met Rose's gleaming eyes in the mirror and bit her lip hard to keep from laughing aloud.

"Right, then. What are the chances we'll be around to see why they made fifty?"

"Inevitable."

They both laughed.

**ΘΣ … ΘΣ … ΘΣ**

As it turned out, their trip to TX49 was rather uneventful. In other words, boring. They didn't get to see the forty-ninth TX crash, which had to be some kind of miracle, and while the alien landscape was interesting at first, the novelty of it faded quickly.

The earth of TX49 had a strange transparency to it, like glass. Though many would have called the color of the smooth expanse simply white, there were so many subtle shades of it, overlapping and piled in hilly heaps, that Martha suspected the inhabitants had probably thought of countless names for what most humans would consider the same thing. The planet was also much, much larger than Earth. The horizon seemed to stretch on forever in such a way that Martha had a hard time wrapping her head around the strangeness of it. Above, the sky glowed a peculiar florescent white-green.

Martha could well believe that the giant planet was made entirely of silicon, but she couldn't comprehend why she was able to breathe, or why there was a cloudy florescent atmosphere over her head. Rose muttered something about an artificial atmosphere; Martha suspected she didn't know much more about it than Martha.

Rose psychic-papered her way into a squat silver building, leaving Martha to make small talk with the silicon planet's inhabitants, who appeared to be half-computer, half-scorpion and talked by using a combination of words on a screen, flickering lights, and clicking pincers. The words were mostly gibberish even with the TARDIS's help, but Martha had fun trying to communicate with them anyway.

"Wait, so your husband did what with his stinger?"

…

"You killed the bastard, right?" "Sorry, sorry! I get that you still love him, but seriously…"  
…

"No, hang on, I didn't mean you should go right now, and kill him! I was joking! Sort of."

…

"Hey, get back here!" "Dammit, you'll get arrested, it's not worth it!"

…

"Do you even have police?"

…

"Now where the hell did you go? Crap."

Then again, maybe she was better off burying her head in the sand until Rose got back.

Which took three hours, forty minutes and thirty-two seconds…not that Martha was counting or anything. She was almost positive it had taken most of that time for Rose to figure out how to work the computer, and only a small bit of it to dig through the massive archives on the network.

"Find anything?"

Martha didn't even have to ask; the hopeful glow on Rose's face spoke for itself.

"Ever wonder what it would be like to live underwater?"

"Huh?"

"You know, like Jar-Jar. Or SpongeBob."

"…dork."

**ΘΣ … ΘΣ … ΘΣ**

They took a detour to the Caribbean. There was a tiny island that was frequented mostly by marine biologists and so wasn't very crowded when they signed up for scuba diving lessons. Martha was mildly surprised to hear that this was one thing Rose hadn't done yet.

On the first day at St. Calao, they were confined to the shallows where there wasn't much to see. Rose wore a conservative black one-piece, but Martha wanted to know what a body-length wetsuit would be like. They swam countless laps—to test their endurance, strength of will, or patience, Martha wasn't sure. A good portion of the session was spent learning how to breathe with the apparatus.

There were fifteen students including Martha and Rose, and three instructors that circulated among them, checking their pressure gauges and helping them adjust their masks and empty them of water as necessary. The instructors weren't built like stereotypical lifeguards as Martha would have expected; two men in full wetsuits, one too lean and one more heavyset, and a homely woman with darker skin than Martha's wearing a bikini that showed off a lithe body that Martha thought was borderline anorexic.

Rose, who didn't even need to learn anything because she didn't _have to_ breathe for quite a long period of time—Martha wasn't sure how long—had a hard time getting used to maneuvering with a bulky tank on her back. The female instructor helped her (too eagerly, in Martha's opinion) by grabbing Rose's weighted belt and leading her for a time. For her part, Martha ignored them and tried to enjoy the weightless freedom of the water; it was a lot like what she imagined flying would be without constraints.

At lunch, the female instructor, Kali, sat with Martha and Rose, disrupting any conversation they may have had regarding the reason they were taking scuba lessons in the first place. Rose got along well with Kali as she usually did with everybody, the instructor's heavy, lilting accent grating on Martha's nerves.

By the end of the session, Rose and Martha were diving backward off a small boat with the other students and would be ready to move to the reef with the others the next day. Martha was proud to say she was the first of the students to make her entry as close to perfect as Kali was willing to admit.

While the other students separated to retreat to one of the three hotels on the tiny island, Rose and Martha opted to stay on the TARDIS. Rose tinkered with something or other in the console room while Martha took a short nap—she was too wired to get a full night's sleep. Then they skipped ahead a few hours, ate breakfast, and joined the others for a day by the reef.

The bright red reef and indifferent schools of multicolored fish were amazing, but Martha was relieved to return to the TARDIS later that day. Rose spent a lot of her time playing tag—or something like it—with Kali and another one of the students; Martha preferred to follow the reef as deep as she was allowed to go and watch the fishes.

In the morning, they went to Noi.

Noi was a water planet. This explained Rose's question from a few days ago, but Martha had no idea what they were doing there until they swam to a massive part-squid part-merman that spat ugly keening sounds and gesticulated wildly. Somehow, the TARDIS was able to translate the bubbles. Martha was just thrilled to be in her brand new scuba gear. While the reef off St. Calao had been fun, it might as well have been the shallows compared to Noi. Here, the clear blue water was so, well, _clear_—and there were so many splashes of color Martha thought she might vomit a rainbow.

The people, however, were less than happy to see them. Martha angrily threw a wandering tendril off her midriff and got a cloud of ink in front of her goggles in response.

"Hey! _That_ is uncalled for!"

Martha really wished she could actually speak; she had to settle for trying to convey her indignation with her eyes, through her goggles, which was hugely ineffective. Rose, on the other hand, had come prepared with some kind of dry erase board-looking thing and super-waterproof markers.

The creature they had come to speak to—write to, whatever—was Ifrii, and he was a hermit who lived far away from civilization. By the time Martha and Rose realized how far away they would have to swim, it would have been counterproductive to return to the TARDIS and move it closer. Instead, they stayed close to the surface for as long as they could in order to preserve their oxygen before finally diving nearly three atmospheres to their destination. Martha was exhausted by the time the Noyans led them to the coral mini-cave on the ocean floor that was Ifrii's place of residence.

"My keys are mine to Keep," boomed Ifrii through a stream of bubbles and lashing tentacles.

He was some kind of Hagrid, apparently, the Keeper of Keys of…something or other. In her haze of exhaustion, Martha couldn't retain any but the most significant of details. Rose was currently attempting to obtain one of his keys, which would lead to a dungeon—no, wait, _the_ Dungeon—on the planet Loki. Given the amount of time Martha had spent in the mythology section of the TARDIS's library, she was understandably leery of a planet with that name.

"We just want to borrow it," wrote Rose, underlining 'borrow' several times.

Ifrii wiped the words away with a tentacle and poked Rose in the chest. Martha wondered if it would be considered rude on Noi to saw one of those things off. They had so many; surely they wouldn't miss one…or five.

Ifrii's wrinkly green-gold-black face contorted into what Martha thought might be a thoughtful expression.

"If you are willing to do our people a favor…I may be willing to grant you this key."

Martha would have groaned if she could. Rose looked at her in askance; Martha rolled her eyes and gestured grandly—sarcastically—for her to go ahead.

"What do you need?"

"Speak to Jumph about that."

It took about an hour to find Jumph—not because he was hard to locate, but because the Noyans were a paranoid lot and thought that Rose and Martha might have been sent to assassinate this colony's leader. That was what Jumph was, the leader. As if assassins would leisurely swim on in and politely ask to see the guy.

When they were finally granted an audience, Martha, glad to be doing something again, swam forward too quickly and one of the guards swung out a tentacle to stop her. He actually had the gall to wrap the slimy thing all the way around her body. Naturally, she struggled.

There was a flash of heat that was out of place in the cool sea, and suddenly the tentacle was gone and the guard at fault was backing off like a kicked puppy. Martha turned to see that Rose had removed her gear, holding her breath, and was glaring at the Noyan[ce] with fiery gold eyes unobstructed by goggles. Martha struggled to draw breath, herself.

Rose didn't replace her gear until she was certain the guard had gotten the message; then, still emanating heat like furnace, she grabbed Martha's hand and swam towards Jumph, who was watching with interest from his "throne" of…shark skulls?

"Humans from nearby planets do not understand that we are intelligent, sentient beings, and this," Jumph spun in a circle, limbs splayed out radially, "is our home. They use Noi as a dumping ground for their filth, dirtying our waters and forcing us to crowd together. It will not be long before our world becomes too small for us."

"You want us to move you?" Rose wrote quickly. "I don't know of any other water planets."

Jumph made a strange jerking gesture with his head that must have been the Noyan equivalent of shaking it, for he said, "No, no. We do not wish to leave. We want to cleanse our waters, make them habitable once more."

Martha really wished she could talk. She grabbed Rose's board and marker.

"What about the humans? We can talk to them, make them find somewhere else to put their trash."

"We have tried," said Jumph, exasperated. "They do not treat us as intelligent creatures."

"Can they understand you? Your language?"

"No, but we understand theirs, and use it to communicate above the surface."

Martha exhaled sharply, frustrated. Jumph's eyes reflected what she felt; Martha, defeated, gave the board back to Rose, who touched her arm as she drew away.

"What do you need to clean the water?"

"There is a substance that can only be found in one place, the Forgotten Nebula. Go there, travelers, and attain five hundred ferros of silver gas. The Keeper will then give you what you seek."

Right, then. Martha began to turn away, certain that was the end of the conversation, but Jumph held them back.

"It is not an easy task to retrieve the silver gas. Ordinary spaceships will not be able to travel close enough."

Rose grinned and wrote, "The TARDIS is no ordinary spaceship."

Jumph inclined his head. "You have been warned. Go now, and return with the power to revive our world."

It took them a little while to find the spot where they'd left the TARDIS. They rose to the surface slowly—slowly enough that Martha had to use her emergency five extra minutes of air—to decompress. They broke through, removed their masks, and stared up at the TARDIS. The doors were closed and it hovered about ten feet above the calm surface of the sea.

Martha looked at Rose.

"You brought rope, right?"

"Er…"

Turned out, those superfluous tentacles came in handy after all.

**ΘΣ … ΘΣ … ΘΣ**

It took an hour of cajoling for Rose to get the TARDIS to show her where to find out how to find the Forgotten Nebula. An hour after that, they managed to roughly convert ferros to kilos and find containers that could hold the mysterious gas.

Now they stood in the doorway of the TARDIS staring out at the not-so Forgotten Nebula, which twisted and swirled in intricate patterns…thousands of miles away.

Rose's forlorn eyes glinted blue-silver in the eerie light of the smoky nebula.

"Well…Jumph did say it wouldn't be easy," Martha tried to get her chin up. "Maybe the TARDIS is just—_too_ special to make it in."

The TARDIS indeed had refused to fly a millimeter further towards the nebula. Rose couldn't figure out why; there didn't appear to be any obstacles in their way, there was nothing _wrong_ with the TARDIS…it just couldn't get any closer. And they did _not_ have a rope long enough to go space-diving.

"I don't get it," she said, all but pouting. "The TARDIS is…she's the TARDIS. The best. Why can't we get closer?"

"Maybe the gas is really dangerous," Martha suggested, "and she's trying to protect you from it."

"Maybe," Rose sighed.

"So…we'll just have to find a ship that isn't so awesome and won't try to protect you."

Rose looked up at Martha tiredly.

"Got one of those in your pocket, have you?"

"No…but I bet TX49 would be able to tell you who does."

Rose still hesitated.

"Do you think I'm trying too hard, Martha? This isn't even…it won't bring him back. Nothing short of the destruction of all of creation can do that. So what's the point?"

Martha abruptly felt incredibly sad and very, very guilty. Here, in her memories, she had tangible proof that Rose's hope was not in vain, but Martha could not share this because Rose herself had begged her not to—as if knowing what hid beyond the shadows would make it cease to exist. The only way that future would be certain was if Martha kept her mouth shut.

"I saw something once," Rose continued slowly, like the words had to fight to get out. "Before I was done changing, and I thought Bad Wolf was something else, back when I didn't understand…at Bedlam."

Martha still remembered how Rose had looked, kneeling on the cold stone floor before the witch whose touch was meant to kill her, burning like a miniature sun.

"I was on a beach, and I was burning up a sun to talk to him, to the Doctor. To say goodbye."

This was new.

"'A sun will burn where the woman weeps'," Rose quoted the Face of Boe. "That was what Jack meant. The sun over Woman Wept that went supernova—I caused it—will cause it. And then I'll say goodbye. Only, I don't know _how_—"

She was crying now, silent tears with gentle sobs that shook Martha's heart with their power. Martha moved before she made the decision to do so, engulfing Rose in her arms. Only a few months ago, Rose would have torn herself away, sucked up her tears, and smiled and pretended everything was going to be all right. Now, she clung to Martha like the other woman was a life raft and she was on the verge of drowning.

Martha stroked her hair and murmured comforting nonsense and looked over Rose's shoulder at the gleaming, mocking nebula.

"Rose," she said suddenly, as a bubble of words rose up out of her gut and into her mouth without her permission. Rose nodded to show she was listening. "Life—was so boring without you." Rose laughed wetly, shoulders shaking. Martha held her tighter. "I think I mean that in other ways, though. I mean there's the running and the adventure, seeing new things, and that's fun, but then there's the…" since the words were coming without filter, Martha's brain wasn't around to figure out how to phrase this. "But then there's the hope. The fighting. Saying no, enough; and yes, you can do it; and why can't things change?"

Rose pulled back completely to look at Martha. This close, the gold flecks in her eyes appeared to be shining. Maybe they were.

"Before you, I didn't have that. I didn't have anything to fight for; it's like I was waiting, just waiting for something to come and tell me that—yeah, the world is worth it. Life is worth it. Worth fighting for, dying for. Living for.

"Maybe you'll never see the Doctor again," Rose inhaled sharply and Martha's heart twisted. "But if you think like that, maybe you'll never see the stars again, either. And then there's just—all that empty space, sucking away at—at your soul, and taking away everything that makes you—you. And I'm just gonna say, right now, that I'm _never_ going to let that happen."

Rose's tears had stopped falling and Martha was unconsciously brushing one of her thumbs across the tracks they had left behind. Rose leaned into the warmth without breaking their gaze.

"How?" Rose's voice was rough. "Because it hurts, Martha, and I don't know if I can do this."

"By reminding you as often as I have to that you are the most impossible, stubborn, passionate—_fantastic_ woman I have ever met."

Rose half-smiled.

"So far. Still a lot of the universe to see, you know."

Martha beamed and pulled her hand away.

"Yeah, there is."

**ΘΣ … ΘΣ … ΘΣ**

When asked, Jumph willingly told them that the last travelers known to have breached the Forgotten Nebula were Sadidans—gigantic, scarlet bipedal lizards.

Extinct bipedal lizards.

Jumph told them that Sadidans hadn't been seen or heard from in centuries. When told that time didn't matter, Jumph crushed their hopes by describing the Sadidans' natural habitat—sulfuric, poisonous, radioactive, and impossibly hot. Even if Rose took them back to that time, there was no guarantee they could find appropriate protection to survive the Sadidan environment. Even Rose, who was physiologically more resilient than Martha, would not be able to approach the Sadidans without extreme caution.

Jumph seemed to believe that the task of finding a Sadidan ship was absolutely impossible—not only would Rose and Martha have to find one, but only a Sadidan could fly it, and since Sadidans were extinct…well. Jumph advised them to find another strategy, but had no recommendations other than attempting to replicate Sadidan technology with whatever they could find.

While Rose had some skill at engineering and at improvising crafty amalgamations of alien tech, she was far from capable of building a ship, never mind one that could breach the Forgotten Nebula.

But what Rose lacked in scientific ingenuity she made up for in friends. She had contacts across the universe in several time periods that she could call upon to help. As it turned out, none of these knew how to re-invent Sadidan tech, but someone Rose knew on Egna in the Galaxy of Fortitude had some potentially helpful information.

"Millennia ago," said Orion, the first Egnaran who had greeted Rose warmly upon their arrival, "our people were considered protectors of other planets. We were allied with many species, among them the Sadidans. Their plight is well recorded in our history books, though knowledge of that time has faded and none here," they were in a small village dedicated to research, "is a historian. I am unsure how we were able to parley with them, but I know that we once did."

For her part, Martha was fascinated by Egnaran medical technology; they were in a modest facility where Orion worked as a healer. The tech was far more advanced even than what she had seen on the TARDIS. Granted, on Earth the year would be 9697 so this was far in Martha's future, but since the TARDIS was a time machine, she was sure that anything more advanced than what was in their med lab had to be impressive. After speaking privately to Orion about something Martha apparently wasn't privy to, Rose joined her in front of a peculiar human-shaped mold.

"D'you know what this does?" Martha nodded at the device, which didn't have any buttons on it that Martha could see.

Rose was silent for a long moment. Martha looked over her shoulder to see that her eyes were dark and downcast. Feeling her gaze, Rose looked up. The pain in her gaze took Martha's breath away.

"It opens," she said, voice hollow. "It's for victims of—of extreme burns. They seal it except for a hole at the top where they pour a liquid inside that's dense enough to suspend the victim in the middle, and rich enough in oxygen that they can actually breathe it. Then they seal the hole and in the dark, the liquid regenerates the skin."

Martha wasn't sure what to say.

"How do you know?"

Rose was again silent for a while. Across the room, purplish-skinned and inky-eyed, Orion was speaking with one of his assistants.

"Egna," she finally uttered, "has some of the most advanced technology in the universe, in any time. But their planet has been running dry of power, food, even water, for decades." She gazed into some far off distance, eyes fixed on the device before them. "Their most plentiful mineral is rhiannon ore. When the ore is destabilized, Egnarans use the radiation for fuel. In 9696, they tried experimenting with the same technology to make food more plentiful. A researcher, Keshua, stole a machine and used it on a fruit-bearing plant, estam. The estam's DNA became unstable and it mutated into a man-eating plant that killed Keshua and threatened this entire village."

"You stopped it."

"Yes. At a price, and not alone."

Rose said no more, apparently unable to. Martha studied her, certain somehow that she had enough facts to draw some kind of conclusion, but she couldn't figure out what all of this was connected to.

Then it came to her—unstable DNA. Mutations. Lazarus. Rose's breakdown in the TARDIS when all was said and done, her reaction to Lazarus's overloading device.

The picture became clearer the more Martha imagined it, especially knowing from her own experience how those kinds of situations could get out of control so quickly. Rose, or perhaps the Egnaran researchers, must have found a way to kill or stabilize the estam using the device—what was it called? Some kind of sonic manipulator. But the machine must have overloaded, causing an explosion—an explosion that gave Rose or someone she knew extreme burns that would have required healing in this very facility.

And knowing Rose as Martha did, something must have happened to the researchers who were operating the device. They died, or were irreparably injured, or the estam broke free and killed everyone and the lack of operators was what caused the machine to explode—Martha had no way of knowing unless she asked Rose, and since Rose was probably reliving that day simply from returning to this planet, Martha was not inclined to force her to share.

"It wasn't your fault."

Rose looked at her in surprise and the kind of bitter disbelief Martha recognized from experience, from when Martha herself had tried to convince her that her own mother was lying about—about the death and destruction that followed Rose everywhere. Martha felt a renewed anger at Francine Jones for ripping open old wounds that even Martha hadn't known were there at the time.

"Whatever happened, you couldn't have known. You can't save everyone."

Rose turned her head away abruptly.

"If I had been faster—"

"But you weren't."

"—smarter—"

"You're smart enough as you are."

"—I was a coward."

Martha saw red. Her skin burned and a sharp ringing sound filled her ears.

"Don't you _dare_," she hissed. Without noticing, she had gripped Rose roughly by the shoulders and pinned her against the burn-healing machine.

"I ran away!" Rose was careful not to raise her voice too much.

"You survived!"

"I left them!"

Orion glanced over at them, but neither noticed.

"And if you hadn't, what would have happened? Would you have rather died? It was an explosion, right, the manipulator or whatever, it overloaded and caused an explosion, just like it almost did at Lazarus Laboratories. Did you want to die that day, Rose?"

There were tears in Rose's beautiful gold-flecked eyes. She was shaking with anger and grief under Martha's hands.

Across the room, Orion ushered his assistants away from them and out the door.

"They died," choked Rose. "Tilo and Yika and the others—they just—vaporized. But I ran, tripped up the stairs, caught in the stairwell when it happened—it—hurt—but they _died_, and I _let them_, Martha!"

Suddenly, Martha knew what to say. She let her hands fall down Rose's arms to grip her hands tightly, as if tethering her to the ground beneath their feet because what she was about to say was going to send her spinning.

"Did you let me die, Rose?" Martha could hear and feel Rose's breath stop in her chest. "In Manhattan. I wasn't fast enough to remove the Dalekanium. There I was, hanging off the Empire State Building, and I was struck by enough gamma radiation to kill me. I _died_, Rose. Never mind that you brought me back, I remember dying. Are you going to say that that was _your_ doing? That _you_ were the one that made that choice, and not me? Did you tie me to that rod and force me to stay there?"

Rose opened her mouth to reply, but her breath was still absent. Her hands trembled in Martha's.

"Are you going to say next that I don't have any freedom at all? That I can't choose how I live my life—that I can't choose to end it if I think I have to?"

"Tilo and Yika didn't choose to die." Rose, finding her words, wielded them harshly.

"No, they chose to stop the estam and save their people. Either way, you had nothing to do with that choice. You have all this power, Rose, but you can't take away anyone's right to be who they are."

Finally, _finally_, Martha's words got through to Rose. She slumped against the burn-healing machine, defeated. Neither of them said anything for a while and Martha lost track of time.

Then Rose looked up at Martha through her lashes and said, as if suddenly coming to an awe-inspiring realization, "I need you."

Butterflies swarmed Martha's stomach and she couldn't help but smile. Rose returned it.

**ΘΣ … ΘΣ … ΘΣ**

When they left the room, Orion made himself available and shook Rose's hand firmly.

"Good luck."

Rose hesitated, still gripping his hand. "I don't know if I ever said—"

"I'm just glad someone got out alive," Orion cut her off. His face was grim, eyes sad. "Tilo was very fond of you, you know."

Rose blushed. Orion's lips quirked upwards.

"My brother knew the risks," he said gently. "Thank you for not dishonoring his memory."

He didn't clarify what he meant, but Rose seemed to understand.

"That's all I could do," said Rose thickly. "You're the one who saved me."

Orion took his hand from hers and waved it dismissively. "Go on, get outta here. Talk to my ancestors about the Sadidans and find what you need to get you where you need to go."

"That's all we ever do."

More than seven thousand years earlier, Rose and Martha arrived on Egna marveling at the lush forestry and ample wildlife that did not exist in the future they had just left. The village and all the cities Rose knew about were not there, either, so they wandered the wilderness for a short time until they found a well-trodden path that led to a back street in a small town that looked like it could have been found on Earth. They were immediately greeted by a wary resident who was tending a road. He narrowed his eyes at them and was understandably suspicious of the strangers that had appeared from nowhere; he directed them to the town hall.

Rose flashed the psychic paper at a clerk at the town hall claiming that she and Martha were sociologists who had traveled from the nearest city, Gnothi.

"You want to see our intergalactic communication archives?" asked the clerk cautiously, filling in the travelers' story for them.

"Yes," said Rose smoothly, like she knew exactly what she was talking about. "My assistant and I are about to begin an experiment involving Sadidan and Egnaran interactions."

"What would humans need with that kind of information?"

Martha suddenly became somewhat self-conscious when he pointed out that she and Rose very clearly were not native to Egna. Egnarans had skin with rich hues of blue, purple, and pink and eyes with no visible "whites" or irises in black, orange, yellow, or green.

"You'd have to take that up with my supervisor," bluffed Rose with a careless shrug. "I just do what I'm told."

"Damn it, Tala," he muttered, rifling through a desk to retrieve some papers. Martha exchanged an amused glance with Rose. "Fine. Sign in here. When you leave, you'll have to report exactly which archives you viewed. This is just to save time, mind you—you will be monitored regardless."

"Of course," said Rose, nodding sagely.

"Hmph."

The top of the paper declared that they were signing in to view the Warren ICAs; Martha gathered that the town was called Warren.

"It's through there," he gestured at a hallway, "third door on the left. Here's your keys and gloves," he handed them a card and a pair of blue latex gloves each. "No eating, drinking, smoking, urinating, vomiting, bleeding, crying, yelling, running, jumping, fighting, or laughing. By signing in you agree not to damage, steal, modify, or otherwise vandalize the records. Violating any of these guidelines will lead to your immediate removal and legal action if deemed necessary. Any questions?"

Martha was trying not to laugh. Apparently she wasn't allowed. Rose just shook her head.

"Good. My name is Garrett, use the comm device inside the room if you need anything."

"Thanks," Martha managed to say and she and Rose left Garrett and entered the room he had indicated.

The records room was dimly lit and spacious. Small metal doors lined the walls from floor to ceiling in rows and columns, each requiring a key card to open. It looked like a bank vault with hundreds of safety deposit boxes.

Martha stood there in dismay.

"Where do we even begin?"

Rose shrugged. She turned around. Next to the door, there was a small panel that looked remarkably like a light switch. Rose stepped forward and turned the circular button until a red light shone in the corner of the panel.

"Garrett?"

"_What?_"

Garrett's voice came through surprisingly clear, though Martha could not determine where the speakers were.

"Can you tell us which section we should be looking at?"

Garrett chuckled gruffly. "_Newbies, eh? The Sadidans are in the two hundreds. Anything else?_"

"No, thank you."

The light on the comm unit went off before Rose even turned the button. Martha studied the walls and found that each door was inscribed with a tiny number in the lower right corner. She found the section of wall with the two hundreds; luckily, it wasn't too high for either of them to reach, though Rose had to stand up on her toes to reach the highest ones.

The records were more or less transcripts of radio communications between Egnarans and Sadidans recorded on what looked like slips of thick, hard plastic but acted like touch screens. Intergalactic communication, though common, was apparently heavily regulated. Warren's archives had a relatively small section of Sadidan communication, probably because it was such a small town. Some of the transcripts were private and password-protected; Martha hoped they wouldn't need them.

From some of the conversations that were recorded, Martha gathered that each municipal had at least one Communications Center that allowed citizens and officials alike to communicate with anyone they wanted in any part of the Galaxy of Fortitude—for a price, of course. All communications—text or voice—were monitored and recorded, kept in a special archive in the CC for three weeks and then transported to the town hall archives. For a hefty price, the record could be locked as private, accessible only to law enforcement and the ones involved in the communication.

Some of the conversations were funny, enlightening, even inspiring. A handful of Egnarans actually had personal friendships with Sadidans, although from what Martha could tell they were never able to meet face to face; they were essentially pen pals. There were vague references to trouble on Sadie, the Sadidan world, but nothing solid, and absolutely no hint of any way to actually meet up with a Sadidan. Most of the unlocked records were official documents, notices, news and the like. It was among these that Martha, after two hours of perusing the records, found something promising.

She smacked Rose lightly in the shoulder with the hard plastic record. "Take a look at this."

Rose returned a shipping missive to the open drawer at her side and peered over Martha's shoulder. It was a law enforcement bulletin about a renegade thief, but that wasn't what had caught her attention; it was the date.

"This is the most recent record," Martha answered Rose's unasked question. She had gotten impatient and skipped ahead to the last Sadidan drawer.

"That's not right," said Rose, frowning. "This is dated six years ago."

"They haven't died out already, have they? I thought Orion said—"

"Orion also said the history got fuzzy after a while, and no wonder, seventy-seven hundred years in the past. But wouldn't Garrett have said something?"

"Maybe not. He's probably assuming that whatever happened to them is common knowledge. What did happen, anyway?"

"Aliens," Rose sighed. "A race from outside the Galaxy of Fortitude came here, probably because of overpopulation on their world. They tried to terra-form Sadie because it was closest to their own world. Egna and Farlowe are the only human-friendly planets in Fortitude, but they're both on the other end of the galaxy from Sadie. When the aliens started terra-forming Sadie, they cleaned up the atmosphere and made it impossible for the Sadidans to live there anymore. Egna tried to help them, but by the time they found out, it was too late, and there wasn't anywhere for the Sadidans go. It was all a waste, too. The aliens got rid of the poison, but they couldn't clear Sadie of radiation or reduce the temperature, so they tried the next closest planet, Hera. The inhabitants of Hera took a stand against them and drove them out of the galaxy."

"Do you know when that was?"

Rose shook her head and returned the bulletin, closing the drawer with a snap.

"Let's go. I don't think we're going to find anything unless we get access to those private files."

When they left the room, they were startled to find Garrett just outside, leaning against the opposite wall with his arms folded. He glared at them menacingly when they approached. With his dull orange eyes, the effect was eerie.

"I called Tala."

Great. Martha wondered if she and Rose should just make a break for it now.

"At first, I thought, okay, they're thieves. No problem. There's no way out. But then I heard you talking. You're time agents, aren't you?"

Time _agents_? Martha was confused.

Rose recovered more quickly. "Why do you say that?"

"Your clothes, your walk, your talk. You're not like the humans from Farlowe. Way I figure it, somebody in the future started asking questions about what happened on Sadie six years ago and sent you back to investigate. Only you came up short and now you're stuck digging through public archives. Can't say I'm surprised, to be honest."

"We were just about to correct that little problem, actually," said Rose with a disarming—fake—grin. "Jus' nip out and go back another few years, no trouble at all."

Garrett grunted. "Except there is some trouble, and it's you poking your nose where it shouldn't be. The Sadidans are gone, everyone knows that. Dead and gone, and there's no point dwellin' on it."

"Did you know a Sadidan?"

Garrett's orange eyes flashed in anger, but he reined it in. "Go back to your time and tell your agency there's nothin' to see here. Where's your manipulators, anyway? Did'ya think hiding them would help you blend in more? Shoulda changed your clothes, at least."

Martha looked around to see if there was anyone else around; the hall was oddly quiet.

"No one'll see you. And if you go back six years, you'll find yourselves in a heap o' trouble you won't be able to get yerselves out of. You got no idea what your messin' with, so stop while your ahead and I'll ferget this ever happened."

"Maybe we should tell him the truth," said Martha to Rose, who looked at her, then at Garrett. Reluctantly, she nodded.

"We did come from the future," explained Martha, "but we're not time agents. We're looking for something, but to get it, we need a key."

"To get the key," said Rose, "we need to help the people who guard it. We need to retrieve enough silver gas from the Forgotten Nebula to purify their planet. To do that—"

"You need a Sadidan ship," Garrett concluded. He continued to glare at them suspiciously. "I don't know if you two are bein' truthful or not. Frankly, it doesn't matter. The Sadidans are gone. You should be, too."

"But they're not gone, are they?" Garrett stared at Martha, who returned the gaze steadily despite the nervous churning of her stomach. "There were survivors, and you're protecting them."

Garrett sighed. "Come with me."

He leaned past them and inserted a key card into the door of the room Martha and Rose had just left. He opened the drawer in which Martha had found the bulletin dated six years back and pulled out one of the plastic sheets. It was password-protected; Garrett entered a long sixteen-digit code, then uttered, "Rain makes the soul more vivid."

The screen confirmed voice recognition and acceptance of the second password, then flickered as it changed to display a transcript. Garrett handed the plastic to Rose. Martha read over her shoulder:

GARRETT SOLMNULI: Rain makes the soul more vivid.

LYRIC SANTANA: And stars bring hope in times of darkness.

GS: Thank Lazuli. I was getting worried, Lyric.

LS: Hush, Garrett, you know I can take care of myself. And everyone else, of course.

GS: So it's working, then?

LS: How secure is this channel?

GS: Secure enough. Now tell me what's been happening on Sadie. The rumors are making me sick.

LS: The AA device you stole from TX43 was so easy to replicate, I'm surprised it hasn't been done on Egna yet. You people are always butchering technology for your own ends.

GS: Get to the point, Lyric.

LS: All right, all right, keep your skin blue. With a few modifications, we were able to install the devices in fifteen of our kaleskin pods.

GS: Fifteen? That's not nearly enough! How many people can you evacuate with so few?

LS: Five per pod, so seventy-five.

GS: _[Unintelligible sounds]_

LS: Security has increased since we last spoke, Garrett. The CCs have closed down; I'm using an illegal transmitter that Roka stole from our oh-so generous Egnaran guests. He's keeping guard outside the cellar of this bar by pretending he's drunk.

GS: You're in a _bar_?!

LS: Relax, the assholes are too preoccupied with their spirits to make the effort of telling one red lizard from another. I'm perfectly safe.

GS: You can't risk yourself like that, Lyric. You're too important to—to your people.

LS: I'm not in any danger, Garrett, I promise. That said, I don't think I'll be able to contact you again after this. I'll have to destroy this transmitter when I'm done with it or it'll spit out one of those stupid transcripts and let everyone know what we've been doing. Without the equipment at the CC, I can't install the usual security features.

GS: That's okay, Lyric. We're near the end, anyway. When can you expect to leave? I have the diversion prepared to go on your word, but if this is the last time we speak, we must agree on when to execute the plan.

LS: The pods are operational and the evacuation plan is in place; all that's left to do is decide who can come with us—and who must stay.

GS: Anyone who stays will die, Lyric.

LS: I know. We have no choice. My people understand that, and hopefully our fellow Sadidans will also understand and not feel abandoned when we leave them behind. I will have the evacuees ready to leave at the end of the week.

GS: Garot Day?

LS: Ha! That'll put a tyr in their underjams! I will make sure it is done.

_ [Indecipherable background noise]_

LS: Garrett?

GS: Yes?

LS: I love you.

_ End transmission._

When Martha finished reading the transcript, she looked up at Garrett, who appeared to have grown many years older in five short minutes. Seeing that they were done, he took the plastic from Rose, renewed the security on it, and stored it away in the drawer.

"Do not speak here," he warned. "Follow me."

They left the town hall and walked down the road that Martha and Rose had followed earlier. The pink-skinned Egnaran who had been tending the road when they arrived was no longer there and the pot holes were filled. Garrett led them off the road and into the woods, unwittingly toward the TARDIS. He stopped as soon as the town was no longer visible through the trees.

He looked at them expectantly, ready for questions. Rose looked to Martha.

"Why were Egnarans guarding the Sadidans?" Martha asked first. "And how? I thought the environment was toxic."

"It was," Garrett agreed. "However, the aliens who tried to terra-form Sadie made it possible for Egnarans to physically occupy the planet with minimal protection—we have technology that the aliens didn't."

"And the guards?"

"Insurance. Y'see, Sadidans were our equals in many ways—all but one. They were able to come to Egna, but we could not go to Sadie. Their biology is remarkably adaptable, or so I've been told. Ambassadors could only stay for a few days before they needed to return, but it was still much more than any Egnaran could do. Certain political factions on Egna," he grimaced, "backed by powerful anti-Sadidan conglomerates, convinced the majority that the Sadidans planned to evacuate Sadie and invade Egna."

"I thought Sadidans couldn't survive on Egna for long."

"They can't, but at the time that wasn't common knowledge. All the people knew was that Sadidans could come and go as they pleased, their home world was threatened, and the only place the lizards could go was here. If it had been framed differently, Egnarans may have decided to do all they could to help."

"But instead," inferred Rose darkly, "fear and propaganda justified taking action to prevent the Sadidans from leaving Sadie at all."

"It was a worldwide conspiracy—across two worlds, anyway. Hera was in on it, too. There wasn't time for Egnarans and Herans to convince the other worlds that the Barricade was necessary, so they worked together to cut off Sadie's communication and keep the lizards from leaving."

"But there was a rebellion?"

Garrett stretched his legs with a grunt and nodded. "Of course. Lyric was—she was one of my best friends. An ambassador who was curious about Egna, she traveled far and wide across this entire continent over a period of eighteen years, and woulda kept going but for the Barricade. She was a leader among her people. When Egna essentially house-arrested the entire planet, Lyric led a group of nearly seven hundred against the Egnarans, and won. But Egna simply sent more and more troops until she and other uprisings were put down. Rebels were executed immediately, but Lyric managed to escape and recruit a smaller group—not to oppose the Egnarans, but to escape 'em."

"What's an AA device?"

"Artificial atmosphere," replied Garrett. "I have a friend—a smuggler—from outside Fortitude who makes frequent trips to TX. I convinced 'im to steal the device and get it to Lyric."

"Do you realize what that did to TX?"

"I don't care." Rose's gaze was cold, so he offered, "No, I don't know what it did. What I do know is that the device saved the lives of nearly a hundred Sadidans. Lyric's engineers were able to adjust the parameters on the device to their own bio specs. Each of the fifteen kaleskin pods they used was then able to generate its own lizard-friendly environ'."

"So they could live out of the pods," breathed Martha, impressed. Garrett grinned and nodded proudly.

"Removing that device caused the atmosphere of TX to degenerate and collapse," said Rose flatly. "They tried to build another, but it was a rush job and instead of restoring the atmosphere it caused a massive explosion that knocked the entire planet off its orbit and eventually, after twenty years, into another planet."

Garrett was wan and appeared nauseous after that, but his eyes were glittering like diamonds.

"So be it," he said.

They gazed at each other long and hard, and eventually Rose nodded at him—out of respect.

"So long as you know what you sacrificed."

Martha was confused. Usually that was the type of thing that would make Rose wolf-out. But when she opened her mouth to ask, Rose shook her head, eyes promising to explain later.

"Do you know where the survivors went?"

Garrett shrugged.

"Everywhere. I couldn't tell you where to even begin to look. That was one of our security measures; if I was compromised, I would never be able to tell Egnaran officials where the Sadidans went."

Martha groaned. "Then we came here for nothing?"

"Not necessarily," said Garrett shrewdly. "I was not, as you can imagine, the _only_ Egnaran who disapproved of what happened and wanted to fight back. There is a group of people from all over the galaxy who call themselves the Freebirds. Before the alien invasion, they traveled to other planets within Fortitude and studied endangered species, built wildlife preserves, and persuaded local governments to pass legislation to protect endangered species. Most of the Freebird Egnarans and a few Herans decided to take matters into their own hands and help the Sadidans escape. Another friend of mine, Tala—a _real_ sociologist, mind—had a contact among 'em and got 'im in touch with me. I told Lyric—"

"And Lyric took her people from Sadie to wherever the Freebirds told her was safe," finished Martha.

"Yep. So if you really need to find a Sadidan, it's the Freebirds you've got to talk to."

"Where can we find them?"

"Try Farlowe," he said with a vague gesture towards the eastern part of the bright afternoon sky. "That's where Tala's contact was last. Name's Kolin. Tell 'im the passcode I used for the transcript and he should be able to help you."

"Why were you afraid that the time agency would investigate what happened?" asked Martha, though she wasn't sure what the time agency was.

Garrett heaved a great sigh. "I don't know what things are like in the future, but I'd like if the Sadidans could just do their own thing in peace, unbothered by ill or well-meaning Egnarans or historians or anyone else. Swear to me you won't cause trouble for 'em, wherever they are in the future?"

Rose hesitated.

"Seven thousand years from now," she said, "Egnarans believe that the Sadidans are extinct."

Garrett's face was troubled for a moment. Finally he shrugged, "Fer the best, all around."

"Thank you," said Rose, "for everything you've told us. Truly. You don't know how much it means to me."

For the first time, Garrett gave them a genuine smile. "Jus' do them proud, will ya? Too many people died that didn't haveta. If I can rest knowing that what's left of 'em still have an impact on this grand, cruel universe, I'll be better for it."

Ten minutes later, Martha and Rose finished their goodbyes and left Garrett to travel further into the woods to where they'd left the TARDIS. Inside, Martha leaned wearily against the console and studied Rose, who was contemplative and apparently in no rush to look up Farlowe's coordinates.

"Helluva journey, then," said Martha at last, quoting Rose, who smiled at her.

"Yeah," she said. "An' it's just starting."

**ΘΣ … ΘΣ … ΘΣ**

**As a brief side note for no especial reason…I hate spellcheck.**


	23. Four Things and a Lizard, Part II

**Sorry. CRWT classes destroyed my motivation to keep writing this; it's mighty hard to keep from re-writing the whole fic, which I don't have the time to do. But as I understand it, there are people still interested, so I'll try to keep this going for them. As always, I welcome critical feedback.**

**Also: mentions of cruel and unusual punishment ahead.**

* * *

**Episode 11  
****Four Things and a Lizard, Part II**

Before they tried to track down Kolin on Farlowe, Martha declared an urgent need to rest for at least six hours before she could take another step outside the TARDIS. Given that they were on a time machine and Rose still (vaguely) remembered what it was like to need a few hours to recuperate, the ageless traveler agreed.

They settled down for dinner first; Rose may not have to sleep, but her stomach still let her know when it was empty. Martha had scrounged up some meat the last time they were on Earth — since her involuntary transformation, Rose had had an incurable craving — and now stood over a skillet turning them over with a fork as Rose chose the simpler task of tossing salad.

Neither felt a need to speak, though that may have simply been exhaustion on Martha's part. Rose, too, experienced a certain heaviness in her bones, but her heart was light and hopeful for the first time in months. She was finally on the road to — well, to getting a chance to say goodbye, which was more than she'd ever thought to have before she met Martha.

Martha was shaking a rare sirloin off the fork and onto a plate when she said, "What was that, earlier? With Garrett?"

Though Rose knew what the woman was talking about, she didn't want to explicate her implicit approval of Garrett's actions to anyone, least of all pure, innocent, _human_ Martha. She traded a plate of salad for the one in Martha's hand and began spooning her own leafy greens, pretending that this took a great deal more concentration than necessary.

Martha let her get away with it until they sat down, then she snatched Rose's utensils off the table and held them hostage. Rose would have avoided her gaze, but those unfathomably dark eyes pierced through her walls like they weren't even there.

Rose blew out a breath, which momentarily shifted a lock of her dark hair.

"Say what you want to say," she said finally. "Don't hold back."

She reached for her fork and knife; Martha reluctantly relinquished the items and peered at her own food for a moment. Why did serious discussions usually happen over food?

Rose knew that the Doctor would never even entertain the notion of talking to a companion about something like this, assuming above all that humans were inferior, self-righteously stubborn, and _would never understand_, but Rose wasn't the Doctor.

"It's wrong," stated Martha with conviction, "what Garrett did. Isn't it?"

"Yes."

Martha was baffled and not afraid to express it: "Then why the hell didn't you _say_ something?"

Rose swallowed a giant crouton drenched in cesar dressing and a raised an eyebrow at Martha, silently requesting clarification.

"What happened to standing up for what's right?"

"I never said that what he did wasn't right," remarked Rose. "I only said that it was wrong."

Martha gaped. "Glad we made that distinction, then."

Rose smiled around her steak as blood dribbled onto her plate. She imagined she looked a mite feral. Martha was not amused.

"Is this some kind of shades of gray thing? I'm not a kid, Rose. I know things aren't black and white. But Garrett destroyed an _entire planet_! And then another for good measure! And he doesn't even regret it!"

Rose chewed thoughtfully, now understanding the purpose of food for these kinds of things. It gave something for her mouth to do while she tried to find the words to fill it with.

"One," she said, putting down her fork and sticking out a finger; "if Garrett had any remorse for what he did, we could pass it off as a thoughtless mistake an' be done with it, yeah?"

Martha eyed her warily, like Rose had just started speaking another language.

The part-time wolf continued blithely while exercising another appendage, "Two: since I told him what happened — will happen, has happened, whatever — and Garrett stands by his decision, it's neither thoughtless nor a mistake, an' that's where things go wrong."

The human nodded a bit hesitantly, like she wasn't sure that agreement was the correct answer and this was the final exam upon which hinged her entire future career as a doctor.

"Three: Garrett _can't_ take all the credit, even if he claims to, because he wasn't the one who took the AA device — he just got his friend to do it. His friend made the choice to agree."

Martha looked like she wanted to interrupt, but Rose wasn't done.

"Four: the Sadidans would have gone extinct if Garrett hadn't convinced his friend to nick that device. But he did, and some Sadidans survived — and countless other lives were lost as a result. Questions: was it worth it? What about Garrett's friend's guilt? Were the lives of the Sadidans worth putting him in that position; or doesn't it matter because it's just one man, or doesn't it matter because pain is better than death?

"Above all that, are the deaths of an unknown number of lives worth the existence of a species?"

Rose was being rather formal and serious about this, a tone that oddly suited her for all that she never used it, so Martha gave real thought to her response, using the typical delaying tactic of eating to her advantage. Even though Rose continued to stare at her, Martha felt no pressure to impress her or live up to some unseen standard, for there wasn't one. She decided to address the final question.

"To the species in question," Martha drew out after swallowing, "yes, it is worth it."

"But?"

"In the grand scheme of things —"

"Are you a god?"

Martha was vaguely insulted. "No, I'm not saying that —"

"Martha, I'm not trying to make any kind of point, you are. But you're seeing this as _you_ — as an outsider. Like it's maths. Think about that."

"I know it's not that simple; even from a utilitarian standpoint, the consequences — I mean, there are many things that factor —"

"_Think_," Rose cut her off, biting harshly into her steak to emphasize her point. Martha pouted adorably.

They said nothing else for the rest of dinner. Martha washed and Rose dried, and all the while, Martha thought. Rose had said she wasn't trying to make a point, but Martha didn't get it because of course she was, that was the purpose of a discussion.

Or was it?

Martha wiped her sudsy hands on a TARDIS-blue towel.

She understood that Rose was trying to make her ignore her own desire to know what Rose thought. _Why_? Certainly, Rose's opinion mattered. But the conversation had started to take a tone of persuasion, Martha realized, when ultimately what the two of them thought about things was irrelevant and inconsequential because they were not a part of the experience. They knew what had happened, but they didn't _know_.

Garrett did.

Martha sat next to Rose in an overlarge armchair in the library as she puzzled this out. Perhaps she should stop being scholarly about it and try to make it more personal. What if _Rose's_ existence depended on Martha's initiative to procure a rare artifact that many other people needed to survive? Or what if her family needed it?

Martha could not say for certain that she would make the "right" choice, leaving the artifact where it was supposed to be and allowing those she cared about to die. The very thought made her queasy. To her, then, in that particular situation, would the right thing be to follow her heart? Martha didn't think she could live with herself either way, but losing her family — losing Rose — would be unbearable. That was selfish, yes, but it was how she felt.

And if she did that — if she sacrificed who knew how many lives for, say, Rose — she'd do it knowing that come whatever may, she _could_ _not_ lose Rose; that once the choice was made, the motivation behind it would never change. A planet could explode, but that fact would remain: she _could not_ lose Rose.

Above all, Martha prayed she would never have make that choice.

"One life is not equal to another," she murmured hoarsely, as if the words were dragged kicking and screaming from her chest and their claws bled her throat raw.

Rose had drawn her knees to her chest and was reading something about black holes; she looked up when she heard Martha's voice. She didn't say anything. Martha didn't expect her to. She was sure now that she understood why Rose had said what she did to Garrett, why she had insisted that there was no point to be made, why Garrett's decision was both wrong and right.

"Garrett can't regret what he did, because then, to him, all those lives will have been lost for nothing. If _he_ can't believe that it was worth it, those lives, and even the lives of the Sadidans he helped save, would _mean_ nothing."

Slowly, Rose smiled.

**ΘΣ … ΘΣ … ΘΣ**

Farlowe was located fairly near to Egna. Also, it was tiny. Martha felt like she was floating.

The TARDIS ended up in a rocky black-soiled field behind a large bank. They lingered in the outskirts of a city that made London look like Ross-on-Wye. There was hovercar traffic on four levels, which were separated by flashing disc-shaped air buoys that detected speed, reckless driving, and other violations. On the ground, the lightning-quick hunks of metal were terrifying. Rose, whose greatest skill was arguably her adaptability, was able to navigate the deafening asterick-like intersections with ease. She didn't even flinch when a Level 2 cargo truck zipped over their heads with a miniscule — and scalding — cushion of two and a half meters.

Martha followed Rose into a gigantic multiplex featuring what Martha determined to be alien versions of a supermarket, a cinema, and a food court — and that was just what she could see from the ridiculously crowded entrance. Was this a mall? The advertisements flashing all over the place were impossible to read, they were so bright and quick. Martha felt like a kid as she grabbed hold of Rose's hand so as not to lose her. Though she was sure Rose could find _her_ in a heartbeat, Martha was positive she'd get swallowed by this crowd of orange and purple and blue-skinned humanoids and her heart drummed happily at the strangeness of it all.

To Martha's astonishment, there was a row of payphones along one section of a wall near the entrance. At least, they resembled phones in that they had individual booths, but all that was inside each of them was a keypad with a screen and three walls of flashing adverts.

Martha wasn't sure what Rose intended to do, but she stood in the door of their chosen booth and watched the former blonde fiddle with the keypad. The screen lit up, showing the symbols that Rose pressed. Individually, the TARDIS couldn't translate them, but as Rose finished, the letters blurred for a second and re-formed a single proper noun: Kolin.

Martha huffed an incredulous laugh.

"You're going to search the entire planet for a guy named Kolin — by using a phone book?"

"Yep!" When Rose grinned these days, she truly resembled a wolf. It was eerie. "But I think I can narrow it down."

"How?" From what Martha could tell, the system was still processing.

"Occupation. He's a Freebird, right? There'll be something here to match that."

The keypad beeped and its screen flashed. The results, predictably, were endless, but next to each Kolin was a listing of not only address and phone number, but also occupation, known blood relatives within two generations, hovercar identification number, and a slew of other things Martha couldn't make heads or tails of. This made the list impossibly longer and extremely tedious to sort through, but Rose was persistent. A line started forming behind Martha, but she turned around every time she felt someone come up, telling them that she and Rose might be here awhile and it would be better for them to wait for a different booth.

Eventually, Rose let out a triumphant cry and ushered Martha out of the multiplex, across several streets, and back into the TARDIS. There, Rose adjusted a few dials and knobs accordingly — Martha swore she saw her use a bicycle pump — and soon they were bouncing around the console room to a marginally different destination.

Kolin lived on the fifteenth floor of a twenty-six-floor building. The hallway outside his flat ended with an enormous window that showcased a bright and wild cityscape that made Martha dizzy. Rose pushed the button next to Kolin's door and they heard a muffled buzzing sound emanate within the residence.

Indistinct grumbling tracked someone's progress to the door, and when it opened, a young, silver-skinned, green-haired Heran peered at them in confusion. He looked too young to be Kolin; perhaps this was his son? Martha vaguely recalled seeing other names listed alongside the one Rose had chosen.

"We're here to see Kolin," said Rose to the young man.

The Heran blinked, still puzzled, then shouted over his shoulder, "Dad! Someone here to see you!"

In the distance, a deep, irritated voice replied, "If it's Gina, tell her I'll talk to her tomorrow at work like we discussed!"

Before Rose or Martha could dispute the assumption of their identity, Kolin's son did it for them, "It's not Gina, Dad! They're two humans!"

"What?!" There was a startling _bang!_ Kolin's son rolled his eyes as a stream of cursing erupted from one of the rooms.

"So, who are you?"

Rose flashed the psychic paper. The Heran scowled.

"Fanatics." He bemoaned to his father as the older man emerged.

His son had inherited Kolin's silver skin, but Kolin's hair was jet black and bore the distinct style of electrocution. His skin had lost some of its luster with age.

"All right, Kugo, I'll take care of this."

Kugo, the son, squinted at Rose and Martha in what Martha assumed was meant to be an intimidating manner but came across as indigestion. Another nudge from his father and the boy left the entrance hall.

Kolin gestured for them to come in and close the door, but didn't invite them farther. Indeed, he was glaring at them suspiciously.

Rose and Martha glanced at each other.

By tacit agreement, Martha was the one who spoke, "Rain makes the soul more vivid."

Kolin gasped like the breath was torn out of him. His dull bronze eyes shone like dirty coins in his silvery face.

"Garrett sent you?"

Martha arched an eyebrow.

"I — I mean, stars bring hope in times of darkness. Would you like to take a seat? What is this about?"

"This shouldn't take long," said Martha smoothly. From what she could see of the furniture in the sitting room beyond the foyer, neither she nor Rose would find it at all comfortable sit down. "I'm Doctor Jones, and I need to know where the Freebirds sent the survivors of Sadie."

Kolin's wide, surprised eyes narrowed.

"Why? There is a reason Garrett was not told."

Martha waved an impatient hand. "And I won't tell him, either. I'm sure it would look suspicious to his peers if he suddenly took a permanent vacation in a distant part of Fortitude — or farther?"

"Look, the past has passed. If you've come here to — to — study them, or experiment on them, you can forget it. They've suffered enough."

"Do you really think Garrett would tell me about you if that was what I wanted? I have business with them, that's all you need to know."

"You could have —" Kolin floundered, hands flapping, "— _coerced_ him!"

Martha scoffed. "The man — Egnaran, whatever — was willing to die to keep the Sadidans' secrets, Kolin." Her face softened. "Truly. I mean them no harm. I just want to know where they are."

Kolin turned away, running an anxious hand through his hair. He paced the short length of the hallway and blew out a heavy breath before finally facing Martha again.

"Okay. But understand, the Freebirds I worked with only dropped them off at this location, and it's been years since then; the Sadidans could have gone anywhere."

Martha tapped her foot.

"The Jillian sector," said Kolin at last, "in the Burnrock Galaxy. If you have something to write on, I can give you the coordinates for the drop-off point."

Throughout this farce of a conversation, Rose was picking at her nails, looking bored. When Martha glanced over, she looked up and shook her head.

"His tongue," said Rose. "It's wiggling behind his teeth."

Kolin immediately stopped, but not before Martha saw, via the underside of his jaw, the subtle, rapid movement that Rose had indicated. Kolin was beyond nervous and suspicious; he was downright agitated.

Martha sighed. "What do I have to do to convince you of my sincerity, Kolin? I'd give you my word if you knew I was good for it, but I'm a complete stranger to you."

Kolin closed his eyes to consider it. He was jittery, his fingers beating a rhythm on his trousers, jaw clenching and unclenching, eyebrows wiggling oddly, breathing shallow.

Rose leaned in and whispered in Martha's ear, making her shiver, "He's in trouble. There is no fixed point for him here that I can see; he could make any of a dozen decisions that have countless unforeseeable consequences."

Martha turned her head slightly to murmur back, "For who?"

Rose's mouth was set in a grim line. "I don't know. His is the only thread I can see, and it's … I dunno — tangled. _Hopelessly_ tangled. I can't make sense of it."

Martha wasn't sure what, exactly, Rose meant by _threads_, but she knew that Rose could see things most people couldn't, and there was something about this whole situation that set her teeth on edge; that was why she had commanded Kolin's attention while Rose did her thing. Understanding what Rose had found, on the other hand…well, perhaps they could talk Kolin into trusting them.

"Burnrock," said Kolin, opening his eyes. Rose backed away from Martha and resumed her pose of indifference. "Burnrock was an ambush. We never made it to Jillian. Thurston betrayed us. He was my closest friend, and he —"

Kolin broke off, tears in his throat.

"Olaf, Jamon, Killian … they were all killed. Lyric and I fought them, but a dozen Sadidans died before we could escape. I had to lead them away — I don't know where Lyric and her people went."

Martha looked into his dirty-penny eyes and felt the truth in his words. But there was something else. Her heart pounded. Kolin was holding back.

"Lyric never said anything to you?"

"There wasn't time!"

"Who attacked you?" Rose asked, yawning. "Wasn't Egnarans. Or Herans. Or anyone else from Fortitude. Garrett would have known, if it was."

"W-well, yes. I mean, you're right. It wasn't. I don't know who they were. They looked human, but they were so _tall_ … and their skin, it wasn't normal. Hard, like rock."

Martha could see that the description meant something to Rose, but the wolf-shifter said nothing.

"Look, the point is, I don't really know where they are now."

"Then why lie and say that you dropped them off at Jillian?"

"I was betrayed by my best friend," Kolin spat, his bitterness sincere. "For all I know, you've tricked Garrett into trusting you, just like Thurston did with me. I won't tell you a tyr-bitten thing."

"Okay. Then turn us out. Tell us to leave. Don't say the counter-phrase. Call the cops. Slam the door in our noses. But don't let us in, listen to what we have to say, and then lead us on a wild goose chase." Kolin glared. "So, seriously. Why?"

Kolin became even more jittery, bouncing on the balls of his feet and yanking at the ends of his dark hair.

"He's alive. Thurston, he's alive. If you went to the Jillian sector, asked around about Sadidans, you'd find him. That's all. That's all I wanted."

"I don't care about Thurston," said Martha, confused.

"You would, if you saw him. You would. You'd either work for him or fight him or maybe you'd think he knew more than he was saying, I don't know. I just want you _gone_, can't you understand that? And I didn't want you to come back. You're trouble."

His eyes seemed multifaceted in the lamplight glowing from the ceiling, the intensity amplified by the stark white of the walls and floor tiles. Martha's shoe had left a scuff mark.

"Please," he said, wiping a bead of sweat from his forehead. "talk to Thurston. For all I know, he's found the Sadidans by now. He might share information for a price. I won't have anything to do with him, but I don't want anything to do with you, either, so _leave_. Please. Please, just leave."

There was something very _off_ about all of this — and it made Martha uneasy that Kolin wasn't making any effort to hide it.

She looked over her shoulder at Rose, who twitched her head almost imperceptibly at the door behind them.

"All right," she said to Kolin, soothingly, fingers spread before her. "All right. We'll go. If we find Thurston, we won't come back." She pulled out her phone — slowly, so as not to startle the Heran — and opened the Notepad. "Give us the coordinates to the Jillian sector, and we'll go."

"Thank you," Kolin breathed. "Thank you."

He tapped the numbers into the phone and handed it back. Martha nodded at Rose, who promptly opened the door for her. Martha walked out without looking back, but Rose lingered.

"You're welcome," she said.

**ΘΣ … ΘΣ … ΘΣ**

"Thurston is threatening him somehow," Rose shouted over the roar of the upper level vehicles as they crossed yet another intersection. "He must have surveillance on Kolin, because he couldn't tell us outright. But it makes sense."

Martha gratefully stepped onto the curb before replying. Buildings towered threateningly overhead. The sky shone blinding gold. She almost missed London.

"Threatening him with what, though? And why would he try to turn us in to Thurston, if that's the case?"

Rose shook her head. Perhaps Kolin's jitters were contagious, for her fingers tapped a manic beat on her jeans.

"No, no, no; weren't you listening? He _didn't_ try. He was obviously up to something, and made sure we knew it, with the way he was acting. Let me see the coordinates."

Martha handed over her phone. Rose bit her lip in concentration and nearly ran into a hovering ball of light along the sidewalk that served as a streetlight. Martha gently pushed the she-wolf around it.

"This isn't Jillian," Rose said as they began to descend the rocky black slope to the TARDIS. "It's somewhere in Yran territory, I think."

"Ear-what?"

"Yra. Tall humanoids with hard skin? That's them." Rose grimaced. "About a year and a half ago — or two whole ones — or three — and a half — when I was still learning to fly this bloody thing," she lightly smacked the frame as she unlocked the blue box, earning an indignant buzz from it; "I, er … accidentally clipped the border of Yran-occupied space."

Martha sat at the edge of the console, swinging her legs.

"And that's bad?" she prompted.

Rose huffed a humorless laugh. She flipped a lever and the engines hummed.

"You could say that. They had fairly advanced technology, advanced enough to kidnap my ship when she was surprised and I didn't know how to escape."

"Kidnap?"

Rose shrugged, jerking at what looked like a gearshift.

"Disabled her shields, pulled me out, and locked her in a laboratory for study."

"And then what? How did you get out?"

Rose trailed a finger across a rotating glass orb engraved with the peculiar symbols native to the TARDIS — Gallifreyan, Martha supposed. Her gold-flecked eyes were distant.

"I almost didn't. But they were taking me to the Hot Stacks once — don't ask," she forestalled Martha's question, "— an' there was … a commotion. I dunno. Gunfire, screaming. I ducked away from the guards and hid in a corner till they left, then found the TARDIS and got out."

Martha was silent. As Rose's companion, she knew how unpredictable things could get; unexplainable things happened, good and bad both, and sometimes there was nothing you do but go with it. Even if you never understood why.

Rose shook her head and finished initializing the dematerialization.

"And we're _willingly_ just going to waltz back into these people's territory? Is that really such a good idea?"

"'Course not," said Rose as the TARDIS bucked, dampeners failing like usual. Martha kept her balance, perched on the console, with little effort. "Actually, it's a very, very, _very_ bad idea." She grinned. "S' what makes it fun."

Martha rolled her eyes.

**ΘΣ … ΘΣ … ΘΣ**

As soon as the door shut behind Martha's friend — Rose, Kolin thought — he stopped fidgeting and went completely still, listening.

A monkey-faced man with a fuzzy brown widow's peak and too-bright eyes emerged from Kugo's room, pocketing a slender silver device in his immaculate suit. Through the bedroom's doorway, Kolin could see Kugo sitting on his bed with his head in his hands and shoulders shaking. Kolin bit his tongue against the flash of anger rising in his throat and allowed the human-looking alien with too-bright eyes to clap him on the shoulder.

"Well done," he said. His smirk was feral. "The whole bit about Thurston was sheer brilliance! Too bad they won't be around long enough to realize that he's _dead_!"

Kolin said nothing. There was no reason to tell the tyr-bitten fool he was wrong; Thurston was definitely alive, if not quite sane.

"Oh," the man pouted, moving to stand in front of Kolin. "What's wrong, Tin-Man? Why the long face? Are you missing your heart, you bastard?"

Kolin didn't get the reference, but he gritted his teeth against the insult.

"I've done what you wanted. Is my debt repaid?"

"Yes, yes," bright-eyes waved a careless hand. Then he stopped, and glared hard at Kolin. "Provided, of course, they show up."

"They've got a time machine," Kolin couldn't help but point out.

"I knew they were coming here today," said the man, not smiling so much as baring his teeth. "I know when they'll get to the prison."

"They know it's a trap."

"Ah, but the truly delicious part of it is they won't be expecting _me_." He breathed deeply, nostrils flaring. "This is gonna be _fun_."

"So we're done?"

The man sighed. "I suppose we are, at that. Good day, Kolin." He stuck out his hand. Kolin reluctantly took it and felt his limb being shaken vigorously up and down as if from a distance. "It was a _pleasure_." He drew out the word like he was savoring it, then left.

A few moments later, just to be sure he was gone, Kolin let himself sag, deflating like a balloon. His knees were watery and he crumpled to the floor, weeping.

After leading the Sadidans to safety, Thurston — not Lyric, who was killed in the skirmish — had returned Burnrock and allowed himself to be captured to feed the Yrans false information and keep them from going after the Sadidans. When the time travelers arrived at the coordinates Kolin gave them, they would seek Thurston, or at least anything to do with him — curiosity, if nothing else, would lead them to the truth — and when they did, they would free him, and escape the prison _before_ that tyr-bitten fool could spring his plan.

The travelers, if they were really worth all this fuss to begin with, would survive, and the monkey-faced man with too-bright eyes would hunt down Kolin and Kugo, and destroy them for Kolin's betrayal.

"What have I done?"

**ΘΣ … ΘΣ … ΘΣ**

Martha opened the door and immediately regretted it.

The place where Kolin's coordinates had landed them felt like a cross between the _S.S. Pentallian_, the ship that had very nearly taken a bath in a living sun with Martha in it, and Bethlem Royal Hospital. It was hot, steamy, smelled of rotten blood, and echoed with screams.

Rose handed Martha a fingerless leather glove. Martha arched an eyebrow.

"Trust me."

Martha sighed audibly and shoved the thing onto her left hand. Rose did the same with a matching glove.

"Stick to the walls. If you have to talk, do it quietly. And remember where we parked."

Rose slapped a pink sticker on the side of the TARDIS, and the blue box … _melted away_. Martha gawped at the empty space where it used to be. Rose nudged her with the sonic screwdriver to get her attention, and Martha watched as, with a buzz, the TARDIS briefly flickered into sight. Rose pocketed the screwdriver, and the ship disappeared again. Rose swept a hand through the empty space, showing that it wasn't merely invisible.

Martha was growing a bit worried about all this stealth.

And anyway, what about the grinding, wheezing noise the TARDIS always made? Didn't that get anyone's attention?

Before Martha could ask any of those or the dozen other questions pressing behind her teeth, Rose left the shadowed alcove, all but hugging one of the walls, and crept into the sweltering stone corridor.

Martha hurried to follow.

Less than a minute later, they reached an intersection. Martha's stomach leaped skyward when a woman looming to a height of at least ten feet suddenly appeared around the corner and passed within a few inches of Rose's feet. She carried a monstrous gun and wore rusty iron chains around her torso and legs instead of actual clothes. She didn't spare them a glance.

Rose released a breath that sounded suspiciously like, "Whew," then turned the same corner and continued along the next cavernous hallway.

Martha's gloved hand perspired something fierce.

Two other giants, these of the male variety, also heavily armed and wearing chains, stumped obliviously past them before Martha started to get the idea that the glove made her invisible. Well, not necessarily invisible, as Rose was careful to move slowly and fluidly when the giants were around, as if sharp movements would attract attention — perhaps just unnoticeable, then. If they moved too fast, made noise, or outright bumped into someone, Martha suspected they'd be in a heap of trouble.

Not that that would be anything new.

The stealth kind of was, though.

Down another long hallway, Martha waited for a giant woman to pass before edging close to Rose and murming in her ear, "Where are we going? And, more importantly, where _are_ we?"

"It's an Yran prison," Rose answered the second question first, her voice not hissing with a whisper but nonetheless low enough to be nearly inaudible. She paused as a bone-wrenching scream tore the silence. "Not the same one I was at, but similar."

Martha very nearly vomited; her stomach boiled. She wasn't sure which was stronger, her rage or her nausea. They were probably lucky an Yran wasn't anywhere nearby — she might have killed herself trying to strangle it for what she inferred they'd done to Rose.

"And — and what, exactly, did Kolin send us _here_ for?"

"Thurston."

"I thought Thurston was _threatening_ him! Is Kolin trying to get us killed, after all?"

"Quiet," Rose hissed. A rumble of chains had alerted her to an approaching Yran. Martha and Rose glued themselves to the wall until the warrior was gone. "I thought so, too. If Thurston _is _threatening Kolin, maybe he has connections in here, or maybe he's worked out a deal with the Yra. But Kolin told us that he _wanted_ us to find him."

"Yeah, to work with him or fight him," Martha scoffed, "but he lied about where we were going. What if he's really just trying to lead us Thurston so Thurston could, I dunno, _kill us_?"

They began climbing a steep hallway that made Martha's legs burn. Her throat was dry, and sweat poured down her arms and neck.

"Or maybe Thurston works here, or is a prisoner here, or knows prisoners here, and we have to talk to _someone_ because there's more going on than Kolin could say."

"But _why_ be so confusing about it?" Martha head was starting to hurt.

Rose shook her head, not in disagreement, but with exasperation. "If he wanted to feed us to the Yran, then he could have given us these coordinates right from the off instead making up stories. No, Martha, the stories, whether they're true or not, definitely mean _something_, we just have to find out _what_."

Martha had no argument for that.

They fell silent as another Yran — this one smelling fouler than a dead skunk in a pile of horse manure — walked by, then Martha said, "This place is a maze. I'm not sure I even know how to get back. Where are we _going_?"

Rose stopped at the top of the hill, only a little out of breath while Martha braced her hands on her knees and panted.

"This is the Labyrinth," Rose explained as Martha rested. Though she'd pulled her dark hair back, she still wore her leather jacket and didn't appear to be sweating the way Martha was in her own spaghetti strap. "It surrounds the cells on all sides to help prevent escapes. The whole prison is underground and shaped like a sphere. Past the Labyrinth," she gestured vaguely, "not too far from where we left the TARDIS, are the laboratories."

"Labs? What are those for?"

Martha was breathing normally again, but her legs still burned and she ached for water. As if she could read her mind, Rose suddenly reached into one of the bottomless pockets of her coat and pulled out a canteen. Rose stared with some amusement as Martha drank from it greedily, water spilling down her front and cooling her chest.

"What do they sound like?"

To punctuate Rose's grim point, another scream ripped through the air. Martha shuddered, handing back the half-empty canteen. Rose took a few gulps before tucking it away.

"Why didn't we park closer?" Martha groaned, sweeping sweat out of her eyes.

Rose ducked her head to hide a smile, then looked up to reply, "In case we need to run." Seeing Martha's look of utter incomprehension, she laughed softly, causing Martha's heart to stutter. "I read a book about this place once, months after I escaped. Yran prisons are built identically so that transferring officers and wardens don't have to re-learn a whole new Labyrinth." Her smile faded. "But no matter how well they know this place, I know it better. I can get us out of here before they even know which direction we went."

"These help," Martha flexed her gloved left hand.

"Only because they're not looking for us. Come on, we still have a ways to go to reach the cells."

"What if Thurston's not there?"

"Yeah, he could be in the labs. The warden's office is near the cells, though. We can look through their records if we have to, see if anything jumps out at us."

Martha really hoped they didn't have to, and she hated the phrase Rose used to illustrate their cluelessness. In a hell of nightmares, the last thing she wanted was for something to jump out at her.

Fifteen minutes later, Rose backed them into a tight corner so Martha could catch her breath again, their shoulders pressed tightly together. Patrols were more frequent here because, Martha guessed, they were closer to the center of the sphere.

"The cells are nearby," Rose whispered directly into Martha's ear, sending shivers down her spine. "I want you to stay here while I check them out. Then I'll come back and we'll go to the warden's office together."

Martha reared back to stare at Rose incredulously.

"You'll be safe enough in this corner if you don't move —" Rose misinterpreted the look on Martha's face.

"I'm _not_ letting you go alone," hissed Martha. She fell silent when another giant in chains clunked past them; as soon as he was out of earshot, she smacked Rose upside the head.

"Oi!" Rose protested, rubbing her head.

"I made my choice," said Martha firmly, though quietly. "You're not getting rid of me."

Rose flinched violently. An unreadable expression crossed her face and stayed there even as she shook her head in resignation.

"Fine. But stay quiet." She turned and walked along the wall again.

Martha rolled her eyes and mimicked Rose under her breath.

They came to large steel door fashioned like the entrance to a bank vault. Luckily, it hung open, allowing guards to patrol the whole hallway. On either side of the door were two particularly heavyset male guards with tiny, beady black eyes and thick brows.

Rose waited until a patrolwoman stumped through the door, then took Martha by the hand and slipped swiftly into the corridor beyond.

One of the door guards shifted his weight and Martha held her breath. But he only shook his head and grumbled something to the guard, the words too garbled for Martha to make out, and they laughed, a sound like a rockslide.

This corridor stretched higher than the others, and was lit by the stones themselves, which emanated a dull orange glow. The corridor was lined on both sides with doors of thick wood stained and blackened by time and what Martha strongly suspected was blood. Each door had thin slits covered by a removeable steel plate at what would be eye level for one of the Yran guards. Twelve doors down, there was another open bank vault door with two guards, and a curved corridor past them.

Rose leaned against the closest door and murmured against the crack where it could open, "Thurston?"

She paused for a moment, listening intently, then shook her head at Martha and moved on. The guards hadn't heard her.

Martha took the other side of the hall.

"Thurston?"

Someone moaned piteously. Martha hesitated a moment longer, but there was no intelligible response.

"Thurston?"

No noise at all.

A scream echoed from somewhere far below and half-digested salad congealed in Martha's stomach.

The metallic scraping of chains warned Martha to press herself against the wall and keep quiet until another patrol giant had passed.

"Thurston?"

Something banged rhythmically against a wall inside the cell, fleshy and wet.

They found nothing in that corridor, nor in the next one, which curved in a semicircle, nor in the next one, which was more difficult to navigate undetected because it cut jaggedly from one end to the other at sharp angles. They ascended two levels, checking every cell they passed, and Martha couldn't imagine staying behind, alone and doing nothing while distant screams hollowed out her ears and a coppery twang of blood threatened to empty her insides.

Finally, Martha heard something like an actual response muffled through the door of a cell, hissed like a serpent with a bad head cold, "Nexssssssssst onnne oovverrrrrrr."

Martha could barely understand the prisoner, but she murmured, "Thank you," and gestured to Rose.

They stood at the cell door and waited for another Yra to pass.

"Thurston?"

"Aye," answered a gravelly voice after a pause.

Rose and Martha shared a surprised glance; they hadn't actually expected to find him, certainly not as a prisoner. They had hoped to get information on Thurston from _other_ prisoners. What power could Thurston possibly have over Kolin from this hellhole? What contacts could he have? More importantly, why the hell was he here at all?

"Do you know a Heran by the name of Kolin?" Rose asked.

Another long pause. Martha fidgeted with her glove. A droplet of sweat dripped from her nose onto the strap.

"Whadov it? Wha' d'yeh wan'?"

"Information."

"Ge' me outta here, an' I'll tell yeh anythin' yeh wanna know."

Martha shook her head wildly. It was a bad idea.

Rose nodded in disagreement; it was, after all, completely unexpected that Thurston was _here_, in a _cell_, and of course that meant they had to investigate. It wasn't in them to give up.

Martha glared and shook her head harder.

Rose pleaded with glinting, gold-flecked eyes.

_Goddamnit, no!_ Martha loosed a string of profanities in her head to harden her resolve.

Rose smiled a sad little smile and made an aborted motion to touch Martha's arm.

That abortive motion broke Martha. She bumped her head against the wall in exasperation. Rose grinned like she had the sun in her mouth.

"Do they ever take you out?" Rose asked the heavy metal door.

Another pause.

"Soon. Mehbe. Ho' Stacks."

There was that phrase again. Rose didn't meet Martha's inquiring gaze.

"Be ready to run when they do. Follow a buzzing sound, like —" A rattle of chains cut her off. Martha wrinkled her nose in disgust at the stench that followed. When sound of the chains faded away, Rose dug into her pocket and briefly lit the sonic screwdriver. "Like that. All right?"

"Wha'ever yeh say, darlin'."

Rose backed away from the door and walked to other end of the corridor, gesturing for Martha to follow.

"You're not planning what I think you are, are you?"

"I dunno, Doctor Jones, what am I planning?"

"Chaos and general mayhem."

Rose grinned.

**ΘΣ … ΘΣ … ΘΣ**

They waited in the curved corridor immediately following the one where they had found Thurston, crouching about fifteen meters from the vault-like door and its stony giant guards. The floor sloped sharply here, rising to the next level, which by Rose's estimation was only a few levels away from the innermost layer of the sphere, where, along with the warden's office, the odious Hot Stacks lay in wait.

"Remind me again why we can't just sonic him out and make a run for it?"

They huddled closely, but still Martha spoke so lowly she was nearly inaudible even to herself.

"Because," said Rose just as quietly, staring fixedly up the slope, "I wasn't planning on a jailbreak; I don't have another of these gloves. We'll need a distraction to get him out of here."

Martha's gaze tracked a lone bead of sweat from Rose's temple down her cheekbone, gathering momentum in the damp hair plastered to her ear; it fell across her jaw until, then dipped in at the chin, melting into the sweat on her throat glittering in the orange-red light of the stones.

Weighing her words, she said, "Just like a distraction got _you_ out of a place like this?"

Rose didn't look away from the top of the slope when she murmured, "Don't."

"Don't what?"

"Just … don't. Not right now, all right?"

Martha chewed her tongue unhappily.

Perhaps Thurston's idea of "soon" was skewed, Martha thought twenty tense minutes later. She felt like a string pulled taut enough to snap.

"Tell me what the Hot Stacks are," she finally demanded outright.

Rose closed her eyes and shook her head slowly. "It doesn't matter, Martha. Thurston won't get that far today."

"Today," Martha repeated flatly. It was a statement encapsulating her incredulity that whatever this was, it happened on a regular basis, but it also doubled as a demand that Rose tell her _now_—before the question was lost to the chaos of the jailbreak and all the hell that would follow.

Rose hesitated a moment longer, brushing at sweat on her upper lip, but eventually she looked up at Martha, the gold flecks in her eyes shining hotly enough to hurt.

"It's an exercise room," she said too lightly. Martha stared, and Rose shrugged with a pained little laugh. "There are cubby holes in the walls, like — like grave niches," Rose winced at her own comparison, "just big enough to lie down and sit up. For a human, anyway." She looked back at the top of the slope, eyes distant. "They make you climb up to an empty one — and they're all at least ten feet off the ground, so that's hard enough, y'know? Then the glass comes up, and they fill the hole with some kind of jelly water that you can — that you _have to_ breathe, but it feels like breathing ashes, and it — it _freezes_ everything, it's so cold it burns, and you have to _move_, and keep moving, or it gets worse, it gets down to the _bones _— so you move, in every way you can think of — when I got used to it, I did push ups and sit-ups and the like. An' they _use_ that energy, like you're a fucking battery plugged into the prison, lighting up these _fucking_ stones —" she struck at the glowing stone under her feet, splitting open a knuckle.

Martha snatched the hand before Rose could punch the stone again, kissing the swollen, bloody knuckle instinctively. Rose slumped, passion spent, as a distant clank of chains warned them of the approach of a patrol. Martha was infinitely grateful for the equivalent of cow bells those damn giants wore.

"I'm sorry," Martha whispered past the lump in her throat before the giant came too close for her to speak at all. "I didn't mean for you to — to relive —" _Torture_, she didn't say, and an explosion of black, possessive fury engulfed her chest, withering her lungs, scorching anything she might have called rationality.

To keep from charging the patrolman and snapping his thick neck (even that would not be nearly statisfying enough, assuming she could get away with it), Martha squeezed Rose's hand tightly enough to hurt them both. Martha deliberately kept her eyes trained away from the guard and on Rose, who stared blankly up the slope. She could taste Rose's blood on her lips.

When the guard was gone, she kissed Rose's knuckle again, making a mental note to treat it — or make Rose heal herself — the instant they got back to the TARDIS.

Martha hadn't felt rage like this since Akura Kraft called her, crying, and asked for her help, and Martha found her nearly barely sane and halfway dead in a party-torn apartment — a rage that had faded in the events that followed, the horrors that sparked World War III and then Akura's death, which made room for the _wolf_, all but obliterating Rose's memory of her human self when she returned. Back then, Martha had directed most of her anger at herself, for her failure and blindness, which still haunted and would haunt her nightmares for a long while — but this time, Martha had an entire species to _hate_.

"Promise me," she said into Rose's ear, and every word curled around them with that black fury; "Promise me that no matter what happens, you'll remember…" She waited until Rose turned her head to look at curiously. "Remember that you are not alone."

For a moment, Rose looked as if she wanted to argue. Something in Martha's face must have changed her mind, however, because she snapped her mouth closed and nodded once, firmly.

As if that was a signal, the sound of more chains echoed from up the slope — too many chains for just one guard. Rose's gaze snapped upward; she tensed.

Martha clenched the sonic screwdriver in one sweaty, trembling hand, and _hated_, and wished fervently that she and Rose could trade places. She had the most _wonderful_ ideas for a distraction.

**ΘΣ … ΘΣ … ΘΣ**

In the warden's office, a monkey-faced man with a fuzzy brown widow's peak and too-bright eyes sipped at a cup of tea the size of his head. Every sip ended with a sickening _sluurrp_, invariably causing his companion, the Yran warden, to twitch violently.

"Must you?" growled the Yran in his guttural language.

The man smirked and _sluurrped_.

The Yran snapped to his feet and swiped the cup and saucer from the man's hands in one swift movement, shattering the delicate boneware against the far wall. The man smiled, showing his teeth.

"When will these travelers arrive?" the warden demanded.

"Oh, they're probably already here," said the man, and the warden growled. "Ah-ah," he wagged a finger. "Be patient, now. They can't hide forever, and they won't find what they're looking for anywhere but here." The man jumped onto the desk so he could sling an arm around the muscular giant's armor-clad shoulders. "Relax, my friend."

The Yran shrugged him off and glared with icy gray eyes. The man pouted.

"They'll be here, I assure you. And we'll be ready."

The orange-red glow of the stones around them shone abruptly stark white at the same instant a klaxon siren blared, startling both the occupants of the warden's office. Ugly shadows, sharp as ice, crossed the man's too-bright eyes.

"_What_."

In response, the warden roared, spittle spraying over the shattered teacup.

* * *

**TBC in Four Things and a Lizard, Part III**

* * *

**End A/N: Rose has suffered a lot, I know, and before anyone asks why I keep making it worse, I'll nip that in the bud — Rose, at the end of Doomsday, was a weak, naïve little creature who wept at the slightest provocation and threw temper tantrums and who, despite all of that, demonstrated remarkable adaptability and resilience when all was said and done. Going through a load of crap won't break her, it makes her better; hell, look at her now.**

**Besides, whumpage can be fun.**


End file.
